How to make AGI effect in battle more relevant?

[S.Court]

When we talk about turn based JRPG, AGI effect is only limited to determine the Turn Order in battle, and even when that's an important effect, I think the effect could be improved. That's important for example in games where they let you to customize your stats with limited resources, so choosing to invest in Agility should be rewarded by something else than just determining turn order.

I have some ideas to improve the effect, but I think those are... generic, you could say? Well anyways

-Changing the battle system: Well ATB is different from regular turn based battle, it's still a turn based system. ATB for example gives AGI an important effect, because the bigger is this stat, you'll make actions quicker, and that shorten a battle or make a offensive character really dangerous due to its DPS.

-Make AGI increases another stat as well: Turn order is maybe not enough reason to make you invest in AGI, but if it increases, for example, your evasion as well, you certainly will have some incentive to increase this stat.

-Mechanical approaching: If you have played Breath of Fire 3, you surely know what Ex-Turn is, but for those are now aware of it, Ex-turn is a mechanic where if the character's Speed is higher by a certain threshold, the character will be able to make an extra action each turn. Mechanical approaching is great because that also is able your game differenciates itself from another games.

-Making them part of the damage formula: Maybe there are some attacks which uses speed instead attack, or use it as part of the physical damage formula, but that would work in some specific cases in the former case; or it would need a careful thinking about damage formula in the last case.

Uhh that's all I have for now, I know I mentionted thing about ATB, but I'd like to keep it for regular turn based system if possible (but if you know another battle system which gives a lot of importance to Agility, it'd be nice to know it of course!) what ideas do you think would add relevance to AGI state?

 

[Trihan]

Ragnarok Online does something similar to this where the AGI stat not only affected damage for ranged attacking classes like archer/hunter (in addition to DEX) but also increases hit and flee, which increase your chances of hitting an enemy or dodging their attacks.

 

[Andar]

There is a much simpler way to make AGI more important:
Use and calculate it when designing your actors and skills.

In case of RMs, the turn order is based on actor.agi PLUS skill.speed
So having your skills with different speeds will allow the player to plan the turn order, and if the speed values and agi values are set accordingly, the agi will become more important in that planning.
Of course that requires your skills to be balanced with a battle system that does not allow simple attack spamming to win.

 

[kirbwarrior]

Maybe it's just from playing too much pokemon, but to me, agility is an amazing stat even just for determining turn order. I often try to downplay agility in my games because it's so good.
Big one; There are many class rolls that don't use stats, namely ones that throw around or remove states, or even item use. Even the damage dealer wants it, because xe need to survive long enough to do damage and doing damage can stop an enemy from doing damage (normally through death).
Oh, and baseline, agi also determines if you can run. Which sucks if you fail.

ATB for example gives AGI an important effect

ATB and CTB are where AGI is the best stat by far. The most egregious example is Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, where you can literally double (sometimes triple!) other's turns because you picked the class with the highest speed growth. Add in berserk (or our yeti friend from FF6) and you don't even have to worry about being slowed down by your own reaction speed.

your evasion as well

I've seen games do this and it's cool. Crit+ is also fun, making it so increasing agi can increase damage in a way.

Making them part of the damage formula

I love seeing it when this happens. I've seen it used in a few games for gun damage (since strength doesn't make sense here).

Mechanical approaching

Stealing is often based on agi. And anything to guarantee stealing is awesome in my book.
Similar to Ex-Turn, Fire Emblem lets you double attack when you are enough faster than your opponent.
In Dragon Quest (at least early ones, I can't remember for 8), agility also determined base defense, which was great for certain characters/classes.
Another fun idea I like is increasing Counter chance based on agility. (If your counter negates attacks, then it also plays a defensive roll!)

 

[S.Court]

Maybe it's just from playing too much pokemon, but to me, agility is an amazing stat even just for determining turn order. I often try to downplay agility in my games because it's so good.

It works specially well in Pokemon due to the nature of the game: Usually all battlers are encounters where all characters are KO in 1-2 hits, so having a great speed allows to control how well you'll play in battle. And in more specific cases like the metagame, you would want to be slower than most threats because you, for example, use a slow U-turn to take damage and bring a teammate safely. That brings to another way to make speed important I for some reason as a Pokemon fan forgot to mention. Make Turn order a really important factor in battle.

That usually doesn't happen a lot in most RPG because characters don't die in 1-2 hits, but Pokemon certainly makes a good use of this approaching.

 

[kirbwarrior]

Make Turn order a really important factor in battle.

I'd actually say it does happen a lot in rpgs. I can't tell you how many times I wished my heavy hitters in older jrpgs (especially Dragon Quest) were faster to save me on mp OR stop a full-scale assault on my healers. Surviving loads of random encounters in pokemon even wanted high speed (low speed tactics are good in competitive, but not so much the game).

I'm glad you brought up U-Turn, though. Snorlax is very good due to going second, and relies on it (I've seen people use even slower pokemon to counter him). I think it would be cool to do a similar thing in a normal rpg.

 

[Tai_MT]

-Making them part of the damage formula: Maybe there are some attacks which uses speed instead attack, or use it as part of the physical damage formula, but that would work in some specific cases in the former case; or it would need a careful thinking about damage formula in the last case.

That's what I've done... and more. AGI is also a damage type. Any skill that uses "AGI" in the formula also has the damage type "Speed". "Speed" skills do major damage to Tank type enemies... or enemies with heavy armor. Greater your AGI stat... more damage you'll do to these particular enemies.

I've also got equipment that raises the AGI stat. I have monsters that use AGI to do the same to you and your characters. I use Luck as the defense stat against AGI based attacks. Equip armor that has high Luck and high AGI and you'll avoid being hurt by enemies who use the Speed damage type as well as use the AGI stat to hurt you.

I made it a key component in combat. Every stat you have is key in combat. Best way to make any stat relevant is to use it A LOT in your combat system. Turn it into an aspect your players need to be thinking about and preparing for.

Turn order is nice and all, but without an ATB Gauge... It's not that great of a stat in any regard.

 

[Fernyfer775]

I use Agility in my current project in a few different ways, but nothing that hasn't already be addressed in the thread:

• Battle turn order, 1st and foremost.
• Hit and Evade Chance
• Part of the damage formula for my bow using character, and a small part of my melee attacker formulas as well.
• Critical Hit Chance
• And in some cases, some abilities in my game can hit multiple times, and the amount of times they can hit depend on your Agility stat. For example, "Wyvern Strike" can hit anywhere from 4 to 8 times, with the higher number of hits happening more frequently, depending on how higher the user's Agility is.

 

[Failivrin]

Make Turn order a really important factor in battle.

That usually doesn't happen a lot in most RPG because characters don't die in 1-2 hits, but Pokemon certainly makes a good use of this approaching.

I would dispute that. I think the Pokemon games have gotten increasingly imbalanced. It was harder to pull off a 1-2 hit KO in the original series. Personally I feel the current emphasis on Speed stat has made too many Pokemon obsolete. U-turn is a good example because it highlights the fact that defensive Pokemon only work well in close conjunction with offensive Pokemon. Which would be fine, except offensive Pokemon typically work well on their own: hence the imbalance.
And then there's the mess about Priority, which completely trumps Speed under certain conditions.
If there's a point to all that, I'm just saying too much emphasis on turn order can be limiting and confusing to the player. Then again Pokemon remains extremely popular, so I may be alone in my opinion.

 

[kirbwarrior]

I think the Pokemon games have gotten increasingly imbalanced. It was harder to pull off a 1-2 hit KO in the original series. Personally I feel the current emphasis on Speed stat has made too many Pokemon obsolete.

It was far worse in first gen, where the only two things that mattered where speed and if you were a psychic pokemon. Toxic/Leech Seed combo didn't work because you were already dead to a psychic. But Shadow Tag/Toxic works now.

I love the idea that some skills can manipulate turn order. But that takes away from AGI itself. One thing I love in the FFT series is Quicken, which makes the target take their turn next, It, along with other status control, makes it so you can have a character that never has to do damage or heal, and thus making speed the most important stat. I have no idea how to pull that off in RM, though.

I said gun damage earlier, but some games have guns do damage regardless of the user's stats, making agility more important.

I actually remember one neat game where MP costs were lowered for having high agility. It was neat since it indirectly made agility matter for damage (more abilities used in random encounters, more expensive spells more often in boss fights). Another note in ATBs is regen is usually faster (not FF7, where it was based on frames instead of turns).

 

[S.Court]

I would dispute that. I think the Pokemon games have gotten increasingly imbalanced. It was harder to pull off a 1-2 hit KO in the original series.

Well, yes, in 1st and 2nd generation getting a OHKO-2HKO was actually a trouble, but each gen has incresed the power standards to a point where pulling a OHKO-2HKO is easier, for example this generation in particular: sure, this generation in particular give two insane walls called Toxapex and Celesteela, but the fact is the power has increased as well in forms as Tapu Bulu and Tapu Lele in their respective terrains, and let's not forget Z-Moves are powerful nuking tools., well, regardless that...

If there's a point to all that, I'm just saying too much emphasis on turn order can be limiting and confusing to the player. Then again Pokemon remains extremely popular, so I may be alone in my opinion.

I forgot to clarify Pokemon makes a good use of this in its metagame, ingame is more debatible (for starters, in a RPG perspective, if any creature dies in 1-2 hits, even bosses, it can be trivialized so easily... )

Another game I remembered does this kind of good is Demon King Chronicle, the enemies can hit hard and at least in early game, having a bigger agility can really help to finish battles without too much risks

 

[Frozen_Phoenix]

I feel like the best way to make it useful is using ATB system and derivatives.

 

[Wavelength]

It's worth noting that in RPG Maker's code, only AGI and LUK have built-in functions (ignoring MHP and MMP), with AGI's mattering a lot more. All of the other stats (ATK, DEF, MAG, and MDF) are only useful because of their inclusion in damage formulas, and you can just as easily include AGI or LUK in certain formulas if you want to.

Dig deeper and you'll find that the stats system is badly designed in both RPG Maker's "default" database setup and most RPGs (even ones not made in RPG Maker). Characters will have complete dump stats which are not relevant to them (e.g. MAG/INT to a physical attacker). Often, there will be stats that are not worth the investment compared to other stats (e.g. games where Crit Rate is a separate stat, but you could gain a much larger average damage boost by simply boosting your ATK instead of your CRIT). RPG Maker games which don't provide additional uses for LUK are another good example of "not worth it" stats.

A well-designed stat system will provide each character defensible reasons to specialize in any given stat or be more of a generalist in all of them, it will provide a mechanism for allowing the characters to specialize (e.g. a stat-buy system, a passives tree, or simply a very diverse set of equipment), and it will provide only as many stats as necessary to create a lot of interesting, cool, hard-to-compare decisions for players who might build out their characters in different ways.

Speaking specifically to AGI, I tend to like to use it as a way for characters to be able to "do things more often", since they're supposed to be speedsters. In one game I've made with a CTB (essentially an ATB without the physical wait times) battle system, I use AGI to determine how often a character's turn comes up. In a game I've made with a standard turn-based battle system, I use AGI to determine not only the standard turn order but also how much Energy (used for most skills) a character regenerates each turn. Therefore, you can invest in ATK to make you skills more powerful, or you can invest in AGI to use your skills and their utility more often.

 

[S.Court]

A well-designed stat system will provide each character defensible reasons to specialize in any given stat or be more of a generalist in all of them, it will provide a mechanism for allowing the characters to specialize (e.g. a stat-buy system, a passives tree, or simply a very diverse set of equipment), and it will provide only as many stats as necessary to create a lot of interesting, cool, hard-to-compare decisions for players who might build out their characters in different ways.

This is the approaching in using for my stats system, for example, in my project you can increase the 6 basic stats (HP, MP, Attack, Magic, Speed and Luck (Called Vitality in my project)) with certain items, there are 6 increase only a stat but in a considerable amount, and the others can increase two stats, but in smaller quantities. The thing is that doesn't mean all characters have access to all items (4-5 would be the max for each character) so for example a character has only access to items which lets it increase Speed, Vitality, Magic and MP, and they can use this item only certain number of times. That gives the character a lot of flexiblity about how to invest in their stats, giving them versatility but also creating limitations and very defined roles. I find interesting we think similar about how would be a good designed stat system o3o

To avoid too much derailing about the topic of this thread itself...

Speaking specifically to AGI, I tend to like to use it as a way for characters to be able to "do things more often", since they're supposed to be speedsters. In one game I've made with a CTB (essentially an ATB without the physical wait times) battle system, I use AGI to determine how often a character's turn comes up. In a game I've made with a standard turn-based battle system, I use AGI to determine not only the standard turn order but also how much Energy (used for most skills) a character regenerates each turn. Therefore, you can invest in ATK to make you skills more powerful, or you can invest in AGI to use your skills and their utility more often.

This is why I like CTB/ATB systems the more (but I haven't found one lets me have a good control of the attack pattern, so sadly I stopped use them) because Agility in particular has a really tangible effect there.

About your turn based system, do you mean something like the MP/TP the abilities consume? That's interesting, but what about , let's say, the command attack? There is some difference between using them with more attack and more speed?

 

[Wavelength]

This is the approaching in using for my stats system, for example, in my project you can increase the 6 basic stats ...
The thing is that doesn't mean all characters have access to all items (4-5 would be the max for each character) so for example a character has only access to items which lets it increase Speed, Vitality, Magic and MP, and they can use this item only certain number of times.

Sounds like an interesting system for building characters! If you are giving the player these items at a reasonable clip, I think it will be a great system for allowing the player to choose how to build her characters, rather than simply taking whatever she gets (which can be the case in a lot of RPGs where stats are automatically given from levels and/or gained from very limited sets of equipment) and having those stats on her characters.

Assuming that each item is allowed to be used by one of several (although not all) characters, you may want to consider placing the cap on the total number of items a character may use (perhaps determined by current Level), rather than limiting the number of items of each type that a character can use. This presents two benefits: first, it allows players to pursue extreme specialization in one stat for some of their characters at the cost of others; second, it also prevents players from giving most or all of their items to one or two of their favorite characters (until the cap is reached), which can make the other party members feel useless because they weren't given an appropriate number of stat-up items.

About your turn based system, do you mean something like the MP/TP the abilities consume? That's interesting, but what about , let's say, the command attack? There is some difference between using them with more attack and more speed?

Yes, Energy is my renamed "TP" in that game, though I changed the coding so you regenerate an amount of Energy each turn, based on your AGI stat. The Attack command is there as your 0 Energy Cost, basic attack which does decent damage but provides no additional utility - so the amount of AGI you have will determine how often you can use your special Skills (which have additional utility like inflicting statuses, increasing your own stats, or granting short windows of invulnerability, in addition to dealing damage) instead of your basic Attack command, whereas the amount of ATK you have will influence how much damage you are dealing with both Skills and basic Attacks.

This system with just four stats allows me to create clear and meaningful choices for my players when deciding how to "build" a character:

• ATK: Deal more damage with every action
• DEF: Take less damage from all enemy actions
• AGI: Use expensive skills more often (and act before your enemies each turn)
• DEX: Deal more critical hits, which deal extra damage and provide extra utility for certain actions (and take fewer crits from enemies)

 

[S.Court]

Sounds like an interesting system for building characters! If you are giving the player these items at a reasonable clip, I think it will be a great system for allowing the player to choose how to build her characters, rather than simply taking whatever she gets (which can be the case in a lot of RPGs where stats are automatically given from levels and/or gained from very limited sets of equipment) and having those stats on her characters.

Assuming that each item is allowed to be used by one of several (although not all) characters, you may want to consider placing the cap on the total number of items a character may use (perhaps determined by current Level), rather than limiting the number of items of each type that a character can use. This presents two benefits: first, it allows players to pursue extreme specialization in one stat for some of their characters at the cost of others; second, it also prevents players from giving most or all of their items to one or two of their favorite characters (until the cap is reached), which can make the other party members feel useless because they weren't given an appropriate number of stat-up items.

Well, the player understand them as items, but they're actually skills linked to common events... Well, whatever, I added both limits, a total use limit and a each type of item limit, and the game also has the ability to let you remove those states and reinvest them if another if you wish to, that gives the player a lot of experimentation, to understand which are the main benefits and possible flaws of the builds they want to make.

Something concerned me about not putting a limit about how much you can increase your stats with each item, basically because I have seen a game with a similar system and making they invest a lot in HP make them virtually unkillable. As there is no thing for player as "too much HP" so basically I did that for balance purpose (but at the end of the day, you can invest a lot in stats with each item, so that adds a balance between experimentation and restriction)

 

[kirbwarrior]

Another idea; If you are using "Timed Hits", agility can make the window of opportunity easier to hit, as a sense of "reflexes". Agility can also decrease the enemies' chances of running.

 

[M.I.A.]

...Use and calculate it when designing your actors and skills...

I usually tend to prefer Standard Turn Based combat.. so AGI is usually only calculated to determine turn order, right?

Some dandy ways I also use AGI:
- Speed based physical skills such as "Instant Strike", "Quick Attack", or "Delayed Hit"... are all learned/unlearned by increases/decreases in AGI.
- A formula to check AGI while affected by certain states, which can decrease the duration of the state.
- 4 tiers of map Speed: Slow, Normal, Fast, and Zoom.. changes in average AGI of the party will determine which tier the player is and can reduce or increase the movement speed of the player.
- "Block Attack", a skill that deals Damage to the Target based on their AGI. (A.ATK - B.AGI)
- Action Command "Jump" can be learned if an Actor's AGI is high enough. Or as part of the job class progression, a Dragoon's entire "Jump" could be changed. Higher AGI = Longer duration in the sky = Higher Damage dealt.

How you use AGI is up to you! Get creative with it.
-MIA

 

[kirbwarrior]

- "Block Attack", a skill that deals Damage to the Target based on their AGI. (A.ATK - B.AGI)

You know, having counters do damage based on AGI instead of ATK sounds really cool...