Preserve TP or not?

[Wavelength]

This homes in on one of the deepest flaws (imo) of not preserving TP.

I'm coming up to a boss battle. The expectation is that I will choose my party with care. I will equip the most suitable gear. I will ensure that HP and MP are full by healing up. Mages can leap straight into action so that, in the words of the quote, they are "immediately starting the fight with their best skills". But I am not allowed to ensure that my characters with physical skills are in any shape to do their best. So two different standards are being applied here for no obvious reason that I can see.

So can anyone explain to me precisely why it is not merely okay but expected that if I want to I can cast 'Armageddon On Steroids' on the first turn, but not be able to use 'Dazzling Domesday Sword Cascade'.

In some designs this could certainly be considered a flaw, but I think more generally it has some benefits too. It's a dynamic that differentiates the playstyles of (oversimplifying here) warriors and mages, in a combat system that doesn't have a lot of other levers to differentiate them.

The mages can come out full force at the beginning of the fight, but as their resources (mana) start to dwindle, they become less useful. The warriors start out less powerful, but are able to sustain or even grow their damage output throughout the fight as their TP pool starts becoming deeper.

In a good design, this allows both archetypes to be useful in different phases, forcing teammates to rely on each other to perform in each phase of battle. (In a bad design, the mages probably have enough MP to keep casting spells every turn until the boss dies.) In the same vein, this also forces the player to consider their team composition when building an active party, instead of throwing any old random characters together.

 

[woootbm]

In some designs this could certainly be considered a flaw, but I think more generally it has some benefits too. It's a dynamic that differentiates the playstyles of (oversimplifying here) warriors and mages, in a combat system that doesn't have a lot of other levers to differentiate them.

If we're talking using TP solely as a skill resource as a way to diversify how classes function, it can be a very valid idea. But it will take a bit of design to get right. And a lot of RPG maker games don't even have an engaging mana resource management system in the first place so tackling a second system seems like a bad idea in that case.

But anyway, I wanted to give an example for @Kes I think is pretty decent. It's World of Warcraft (WoW).

In that game, you have mana users (like mages) and rage users (like warriors). Mana starts at full and can be refilled out of combat by drinking water, and rage starts at 0. Each has advantages. Rage might build slowly, but rage is also much more replenish-able. In a longer fight, mages run out of mana but warriors just keep on going.

It also fits the theming of each class. Mages are intelligent, so they come prepared into a fight (like a DnD wizard who has to prepare spells beforehand). Warriors are more athletic, so they don't get tired.

The important thing to remember, too, is that both have tools for dealing with the negatives of their resource. Warriors have skills like charge and enrage to get instant rage build up. Mages have mana gems and potions to last longer.

PS I think the state of WoW now probably makes it way easier to manage resources without thinking. I'm speaking of the early days when WoW actually tried to have some kind of game design instead of just being brainless grinding.

 

[RachelTheSeeker]

I myself vouch for preserving TP, and intend to use it in a Limit Break or Overdrive fashion for my game. As it requires the player to max out their TP to use such awesome abilities, I feel it'd be nigh-impossible to get it high enough outside of boss fights without preserving it. Replaying FF7, there's nothing stopping a player from conversing a filled Limit Meter by using magic, summons, et cetera; why should my RPG do different?

Bigger question IMHO: should there be a means, even rare and missable, to boost TP mid-fight? Should there be consumables that add to the TP meter and if so, how hard should they be to find and replace?

 

[oriongates]

I myself vouch for preserving TP, and intend to use it in a Limit Break or Overdrive fashion for my game. As it requires the player to max out their TP to use such awesome abilities, I feel it'd be nigh-impossible to get it high enough outside of boss fights without preserving it. Replaying FF7, there's nothing stopping a player from conversing a filled Limit Meter by using magic, summons, et cetera; why should my RPG do different?

Bigger question IMHO: should there be a means, even rare and missable, to boost TP mid-fight? Should there be consumables that add to the TP meter and if so, how hard should they be to find and replace?

No reason why not, you could even potentially have equipment that gives you a fast TP fill rate. As far as how rare, it just depends on how powerful the TP skills are. If 100 TP means you can cut a boss's HP in half (or more) then it should probably be rare, weak or both. If 100 TP is only about twice as powerful as most other skills then it's probably fine to have something relatively easy to obtain (maybe on the same level as something like an Elixir (full MP/HP heal)).


As far as the FF7 comparison, only thing I would point out is that the limit break gauge in FF7 filled really slowly compared to the default TP meter, and it slowed the higher you pushed it. Getting a maxed-out limit break meter usually required taking over 150% of your max HP in damage, so even with it carrying over from fight to fight you generally only got one or two uses during a dungeon and you often had to save the maxed out gauge for a boss fight anyway, because if you spent it all you probably weren't getting it back before you met the boss.

In comparison, it's possibly to max out the default TP gauge in a few rounds with a small number of party members and with none of them KOing at all, and you're pretty much guaranteed to fill it several times during a significant boss fight.

 

[Tai_MT]

To reply directly to the question... TP is often not preserved because players have a "But, I might need it later" mentality. Why don't they use Elixirs? "I might need it later". Why don't you use the TP Nukes on basic enemies? "I might need it later."

Inevitably, everyone saves their Nukes to use on the bosses... which often renders boss fights... impossible to balance. If you balance for every character to use their TP Nukes on turn one, then you make it a difficult game for those who came into the fight without TP Nukes. But, if you balance around players who didn't bring the TP Nukes, then those who bring them in utterly destroy the fight.

It's really not that big of a mystery why so many games don't "preserve TP". You need only look to the Final Fantasy series and how it's players approach Limit Breaks to see why.

As for myself...

I renamed it "Rage". Oh yes, you dislike this. "It makes little sense!". Actually, no, it makes a lot of sense. As you reach your limits, get desperate, get angry, a myriad of chemicals along with adrenaline dump into your system and give you a hyper focus and a nearly unstoppable amount of power. Most anyone who has ever had a serious fist fight can attest to this. Something in your brain just "clicks" and suddenly your inhibitions drop and the normal limitations your body puts on you also fade away, and the only thing that matters is the complete and utter destruction of the opponent in front of you, even if that means your own destruction alongside 'em.

That's what rage is. It is not, "Oh, I got mad, so I have adrenaline". No, actual rage is the primal part of your brain flicking on and ignoring every other part of your brain in order to do as much damage as possible, even at the expense of your own well-being. It is "fight" taken to its most extreme. If you genuinely see someone in "rage", you fear for your life. Because the logical part of their mind is now gone. It will stay gone until they achieve satisfaction or the chemicals wear off and their brain switches back on. It is legitimate crazy. You can see it in their eyes.

So, yes. I call it "Rage". That is exactly what it is. Characters pulling from their own deepest depths and reserves to become "super human" to some degree.

In most of my characters, there is exactly one skill that uses TP. Just one. That skill, when executed, usually dispatches a single enemy. Or, severely hurts a single enemy. In rare cases, it can wipe four enemies out in one shot.

And then, I have a character who's skillset is "Adrenaline". Which means, every single skill he has (except a self heal) is tied to his TP. Everything he does builds his TP faster, uses a lot of his TP, and does a lot of burst damage (or allows his teammates to do a lot of burst damage).

But, I have equipment in my game with "preserve TP" on it, and even equipment that increases TP gain. Much of it is to allow players to stockpile their TP if they so desire... but they sacrifice other equipment to do so. They sacrifice specific builds to do this.

By and large, my "TP Nukes" are meant to be used against bosses. But, not necessarily immediately. You are meant to accumulate the TP during a boss fight and use it there for spike damage. You aren't meant to grind enemies to build up TP and then go fight the boss.

Still, if a player wants to do that, they can do so. But, doing so makes you "hyper specialized". You'll be good at preserving your TP to drop a Nuke... but you'll sacrifice every other aspect of gameplay about that character in doing so. The player then needs to decide between creating a build that focuses on using a single skill all the time... or one that uses all the other skills and only sometimes uses the single Nuke Skill.

I guess I do have other ways to mitigate the lack of TP as well...

For example, I do have a character that transfers his own TP to either a single target or the entire party. Annnnnddddd I do have items called "Dragon's Blood" that gives you TP (20, 40, 60, 80, 100%) if you use them. So, there are ways to spam your TP, but you have to choose when to do so.

And honestly... I don't think players will. Why?

"Because I might need it later".

You know, in case there's an even bigger giant enemy crab after this first one made of titanium.

 

[Restart]

Also it's a turn based battle system. The combat has so many levels of abstraction divorcing it from an actual fight, that nitpicks about something being called 'rage' being unrealistic are missing the forest for the trees.

 

[Aesica]

Yeah, I'm in the camp that resets TP after battle, but that's because I use TP as a limit break gauge and I feel like sitting on a full limit gauge to unload on the inevitable boss is kind of lame.

That said, most of my resources (each character has their own--rage, energy, mana, etc) auto-reset to a specific amount after each battle (energy to 100%, Rage to 0%, and only mana stays about where it left off.

This homes in on one of the deepest flaws (imo) of not preserving TP.

I'm coming up to a boss battle. The expectation is that I will choose my party with care. I will equip the most suitable gear. I will ensure that HP and MP are full by healing up. Mages can leap straight into action so that, in the words of the quote, they are "immediately starting the fight with their best skills". But I am not allowed to ensure that my characters with physical skills are in any shape to do their best. So two different standards are being applied here for no obvious reason that I can see.

So can anyone explain to me precisely why it is not merely okay but expected that if I want to I can cast 'Armageddon On Steroids' on the first turn, but not be able to use 'Dazzling Domesday Sword Cascade'.

I like to think of it as something of a tradeoff. After casting AoS a few times, your mage is exhausted and gasping for breath as he/she chugs down potions for a few turns. Meanwhile, your warrior was just getting warmed up. Screw potions, he/she is now pumped and ready to unleash DDSC, and can probably do so every turn because it seems like a lot of TP users in various games earn back whatever they spent, and then some--both from the skill they just used as well as any damage they took that round.

If anything, it seems like TP in a lot of RM games ends up feeling like a free resource. To use one of your own games as an example (Timely Intervention, good game by the way) MP always felt like something I had to sit on (with the exception of that priestess girl who's MP was bottomless) while TP users (especially that unarmed reporter guy) could basically freecast.

 

[CrowStorm]

0_) I almost never look at TP as TP. What it actually is varies from project to project. In Malleus, Ire is vaguely akin to "Risk" in vagrant story, but only in the abstract sense that it is a meter that encourages riskiness. (In hindsight, Vagrant Story, damn, I will always love you, but that is a stupidly obvious thing to name your mechanic.)

1) Currently, in a side project, I am using TP as Stamina (it refreshes after each combat and there's a light melee and a heavy melee or you can guard/wait and recover like in Soulsborne/like a ton of fighting games/probably no shortage of action games/at least a few rpgs (xenogears?). I am super curious if anyone else has done this (not the part in parentheses, just the stamina thing) and how it went.

2) Other than that, my nostalgia based instinct is to treat the stamina bar like the limit bar in ff7, i.e. "Preserve TP", though again that's not how I think of it.

 

[ave36]

I absolutely preserve TP because it is explicitly used in my game as a Limit Break system. The TP max for all characters is 100, and all TP powers use 100 TP. Fill the bar, use the Limit Break, and the bar is empty again.

There is a mechanic preventing you from sitting on a full limit bar: having 100 TP replaces your Normal Attack with the Limit Break menu. You can no longer do the Normal Attack until you unload that Limit Break. You can technically sit on your limit bar, but this limits your character.