Level Design: Dungeon design for a TBS?

[NectherLouieSouribio]

Sup guys!

I want to get your thoughts on this topic. When you design your dungeons with a turn-based battle system, how do you make sure that you don't remove the player from the flow of progression in the dungeon? Since it can be pretty distracting to do a random encounter and if you do use an event touch encounter it still removes you away from the map to a new scene. I'm not used to designing levels for a turn-based battle systems. My designs are more for action adventures.

A good example would be Pokemon dungeons but it needs a fair amount of preparing the player before dungeons. Like letting the player know that bushes are random encounters and there are some forced ones. What's great about Pokemon dungeons is that you seem to know where to go without anyone pointing you on the right direction and its those forced encounters that makes it possible, you know you've been to the area when forced encounters aren't tirggered anymore.

What about you? How do you design your dungeon levels around turn-based battle system?

 

[Azmor]

You can use regions to set enemies on a specific spot on the map. The player won't be able to see them but the random encounters will start inside the region only. With further knowledge you could make timers to respawn events on the region who walk inside their own priority and follow the player when he enters the region. I can imagine that to be possible, but it could get complicated.

I warn the player through companions & story. I think it's nice to hear from an NPC that "There could be something inside."
That makes the player more prepared, and gives your characters more ... personality.

Someone who enters the dungeon the first time would say "Are you really going inside? I fear there could be monsters or something. It's better to stay away, untill we are stronger. It looks really dangerous to go unprepared." (You could even make checks if the player got items like health potions and stuff with him, so that your follower can use that information to remind the player to buy potions.)

On repeatable dungeons they could say something like:

"Ahh, our good ol' Desert Cavern. I'm ready when you are." / "Ahh, our good ol' Desert Cavern. Got potions with you?" - Or if your follower is a healer "Ahh, our good ol' Desert Cavern. I will take care of your wounds ... just, don't die, alright?"

 

[gstv87]

What's great about Pokemon dungeons is that you seem to know where to go without anyone pointing you on the right direction

I believe it is right at the start, the first (or second) thing they tell you is "stay away from the grass, there's dangerous pokemon in there"
it's mentioned so early in the game that it becomes native for the rest of it

also, most dungeons (and whole games in general) are linear.
that is, there is one entry, and one exit.
even if the path loops back on itself, or has branches, the progression is still linear, so start by making a simple line with rooms to either side.
whenever you leave the main "lane" to go into a side room, there's only one way for you to go: back to the main lane (main narrative).
even if you loop back around and present multiple rooms or paths, the exit point of the dungeon will still be past that loop, forwards.

what you describe as "forced encounters" are effectively parts of the narrative.
they're intentional, and they're there for you to get to them by moving forward through the dungeon.

 

[NectherLouieSouribio]

@Azmor : that region locked random encounter is a pretty good idea. You could just do the random encounter on a set region without stopping the player moving from place to place and additional dialogues is an added feature. I might grab that and use it on my game.

@gstv87 : yup those forced encounters are part of the narrative which is what makes it great because they use it as well to point players to the right direction of where to go.

As for dungeons, yes almost all dungeons are linear from point A to point B, I might not have explained it properly, apologies. What I meant by progression flow is not about the design of the space but the things you do in the middle, the puzzles or the lock and key mechanic.

For example: if we do just random encounter through the whole dungeon and you give the player a puzzle, then while he's almost near to completing that puzzle, random encounter kicks in, which means you take the player away from thinking on that puzzle which means destroying the flow of their progression.

A good alternative was what @Azmor suggested which is trying locked encounters where you can separate the puzzles and encounters on the dungeon. Another one would be making sure that when you transfer to battle scene the transition is smooth, maybe grab the map their currently on and use that as a battleback.