Making Hunting Mechanics Like Survival Games

[CallMeKerrigan]

I've been wondering how you could do it in RPG Maker without using a battle system. I don't like the idea of using turn based battle to kill spiders or bears.. which I guess it could be done, but I think it would be too complicated and would be really boring when the player's only skill would basically be 'attack'. I looked into active battle systems, but I don't really want to make new sprites for every weapon for every character attacking (ugh) and it also seems like the active battle systems that are available are unfinished or don't work very well and I want to avoid problems like that.


I suppose one thing I could do is just make each animal sprite it's own event that spawns randomly and depending on the kind of animal, the sprite will either chase or run away from the player, and if the event touches the player the event could do a check for the player's skill and if higher than a threshold (with some variance) will be a hit towards the animal, and if lower, a hit towards the player. The only problem I see with this is that it may be too easy. The player could just dash away from/towards the animal so there really isn't any challenge in the actual hunt itself. There also comes a problem if I want a really rare creature that drops expensive materials, this kind of system isn't really designed with a boss in mind.


My other option is finding a way to make the turn battle system work. The pros are that it would have the corresponding correct graphics for battle, the cons are that I don't think I have enough skills or content to make an actual turn battle system, and I don't really want to because the battle isn't the focus of the game. The importance of the hunting mechanic is to provide another threat towards the player, and also provide material/skill gain.


I'm stuck on this and I feel like there's probably a better option that I'm not seeing.

 

[Milennin]

I'd do something with setting traps on the map, luring or chasing animals into them, and on-map quick-time events instead of battle encounters.

 

[CallMeKerrigan]

I'd do something with setting traps on the map, luring or chasing animals into them, and on-map quick-time events instead of battle encounters.

Sorry if this is a silly question, but what are quick time events? Is that like hitting buttons when you're near the event?

 

[Milennin]

Sorry if this is a silly question, but what are quick time events? Is that like hitting buttons when you're near the event?

Yeah, like if you approach an animal and it attacks or tries to flee, there could be a key input pop-up for a short moment to react to the animal's action.

 

[Eschaton]

Read this and immediately thought of how you acquire Chocobos in Final Fantasy VII. In that game, you acquire mounts by encountering them in the world map alongside regular enemies. The Chocobo will immediately run away if you don't use an item to keep it from doing so. You need to keep the Chocobo occupied long enough to kill the other monsters. If the Chocobo is occupied with the item and the other monsters are dead, you get to ride the Chocobo after the battle ends.

It's a very frustrating and poorly-received mechanic that didn't survive past FFVII, but you could learn from it.

Let's say you run into a deer out on the world map. You could kill it and get it's meat, pelt, and/or antlers as a drop. However, the only action it can take in battle is to run away immediately, requiring the player to think and act fast to get the deer before it runs away. Perhaps there could be a hunter build which allows the player to quickly strike first or force an advantage in the player's favor.

 

[CallMeKerrigan]

@Eschaton

That's something I was thinking about doing. All of my characters are stranded on an island and I thought it would be kind of neat for each character to have a different survival strength so that way the character is motivated to find more survivors.

 

[Bex]

How about a self made battle system a little bit simpler than the one in Monkey Island 1? (Video 0.50)
Or how about battling Animals with a Quiz, you get Questions and need to give the answer via multiple choice.
Correct answers could deal damage to the Animal, while wrong answers hurt the Player.

Not a very serious Idea, but i thought its maybe worth mentioning it.