Promoting Strategy

[Bland-Aid]

So, to me, an ideal turn-based RPG would require the player to put genuine thought into how they go about battling; simply spamming the Attack command or a powerful spell and healing when necessary wouldn't be enough to win the day.

Most RPGs I've played, however, fall into this trapping: hit the enemy really hard and heal when your HP gets low until you eventually whittle your opponent's HP down. This doesn't make those games inherently bad, but I think it stops them from being as fun as they could be.

...which leads me into my main question: how does one go about encouraging strategy and tactical decision-making in turn-based combat?

 

[MushroomCake28]

The solution I went for is adopting a semi-tactical battle system. It's still an ATB battle system, but there is a 4x4 grid for enemies and 4x4 grid for actors, and skills can have different AoE (Plus, horizontal line, vertical line, etc.). I've also added an ability system on top of the skill system, meaning you can evolve your skills to your liking (example for a fire spell: you can either focus on single target damage, AoE damage, or increasing the % chance to inflict the burn status).


EDIT: The other thing I do is organize the enemy troops. I divide enemies into 6 groups:
1) Trash Mob: weak, simply there to fill space.
2) Vipers: relatively weak, is there to inflict status effects.
3) Warrior: relatively strong, high defense and high hp, is there to act as a shield to the enemies.
4) Assassins: very strong, mid hp, fast, is there to deal a lot of physical damage quickly.
5) Mage: weak physically, strong magically, is there to cast offensive spells.
6) Adept: weak physically, strong magically, is there to cast healing spells primarily and offensive spells occasionally.

By combining different enemy types together you can create weakness and strengths in the troops, which would require different strategies.

 

[Andar]

You need to put some thoughts into skill behaviour and damage relations, and then put even more time into playtesting to get the correct numbers - after all, with attack bashing no balance is needed at all.

Then you have to add some form of extended tutorial to your game - attack bashing has become too common for most players to even understand that fights in your game would require thinking.

And a lot of independent game developers simple can't or won't put that work into their combat balance.
Sometimes it's can't - because they don't understand the required processes enough.
Sometimes it's won't - because their target audience and they themselves have no interest in tactical fights. Especially casual players can be driven away if a game expects them to do more than just clicking along.


But to retrain your players into thinking, you need to group the possible action into different types and make sure that each enemy can only be beaten by the correct mix of types and make sure that the players know this before they get into those fights. If they need to randomly test which skill makes the best effect, that would be contrary to your intentions.
Most professional games adapted a damage-triangle for this, but that is only limited strategy. More options would reduce your target audience however...

 

[TheoAllen]

So, to me, an ideal turn-based RPG would require the player to put genuine thought into how they go about battling; simply spamming the Attack command or a powerful spell and healing when necessary wouldn't be enough to win the day.

The keyword from this sentence is "spam". In another word, to "win the day" it should not be about spamming the best skill ever. By this sentence alone, the solution already exists. To prevent the skill to be spammable (i.e, skill cooldown), or make spamming useless (like pay attention to special triggers). That is if you're looking for.

Most RPGs I've played, however, fall into this trapping: hit the enemy really hard and heal when your HP gets low until you eventually whittle your opponent's HP down. This doesn't make those games inherently bad, but I think it stops them from being as fun as they could be.

What you're looking for is a puzzle element in the battle. Frankly, survival and reduce the opponents HP to zero is the core goal in most of the battle. Whatever you do, that always be the goal.

There are two approaches to add puzzle element in RPG Battle that I know.
> One approach is to railroad the player into making a specific build/do exactly what they need to do. For example, in order to beat a certain boss, at turn x, you have to up the shield to mitigate the trigger. Then hits hard when it has an opening.
> Second approach is to encourage the player to think about efficiency. To beat a certain enemy/boss the player is not railroaded into a specific pattern, however, if they figured it out how to beat the enemy/boss efficiently, they will have a minimal loss to their resources. Let it be consumables, HP, or simply MP.

Whether they fun or not is up to the other player to decide.

 

[Pix3M]

If you want to encourage tactical thinking, you basically need to balance the game so that you cannot just spam the best attacks without the opponent finding some way to counter you. Basically, everything needs a hard counter. If some attack or skill has no hard counter, it is a skill or attack you can spam with zero repercussions. Most games I know that you could probably say as "strategy" has some type of rock-paper-scissors type of deal.

 

[Tai_MT]

So, to me, an ideal turn-based RPG would require the player to put genuine thought into how they go about battling; simply spamming the Attack command or a powerful spell and healing when necessary wouldn't be enough to win the day.

Most RPGs I've played, however, fall into this trapping: hit the enemy really hard and heal when your HP gets low until you eventually whittle your opponent's HP down. This doesn't make those games inherently bad, but I think it stops them from being as fun as they could be.

...which leads me into my main question: how does one go about encouraging strategy and tactical decision-making in turn-based combat?

Yep, this is all too common. Devs who don't think their combat through. That don't realize it's a feature and should be fleshed out as one. A "power fantasy" is worthless if the player doesn't feel powerful or intelligent. Mashing attack is often the most efficient way to play an RPG as devs don't take time to consider their skill lists or damage formulas. They spend too much time trying to "balance" these things, and not enough time actually striking a balance between the enemies and the player.

I did a lot of things to promote tactical thinking. Namely, wanting to encourage players to use their Skills and not the Attack command. Not that there's anything wrong with using the Attack Command, but it's something I want players to use when they're fighting weaker enemies or have an advantage in using it.

I have three forms of "Attack". There's the "Attack" command which is just a straight "Attack minus Defense equals damage" affair. I then have a version that uses Agility against Luck, and another version that uses Magic against Magic Defense. These each have Elements as well (Strength, Speed, and Magic). Enemies with high defense won't take much damage from "Attack", but might take more damage from "Agility" or "Magic".

Further, most of my Skills aren't strictly damage dealers. Most inflict a state, or are buffs for the player to use, to increase their damage overall. Each skill has it's own Element as well. (I have a lot of elements in order to guarantee that any party composition could win the game if played well, as well as to ensure that players aren't just spamming one attack or skill every single combat encounter to win). Enemies are generally "weak" to two or three elements, "resistant" to 2 or 3 elements, and all other elements are "neutral". My states generally work the same. All enemies (including bosses) have 1 or 2 weaknesses to states, 1 or 2 completely immune to states... and the rest are "neutral". This ensures that players who want to inflict states... can. Even on bosses. Every weapon even has an Element tied to it. Every piece of armor resists certain elements and damage types.

Skills, by and large, will do more damage than baseline "Attack". But, they're not so amazing that you can spam them for each battle. Other skills enhance using the baseline "Attack", or make the skills even more powerful and deadly. It is generally worth it to cast an "Attack Up 25%" skill and then attack.

Furthermore, my enemies are designed to not be "damage sponges" either. They have gimmicks. Things they will use against you. Some of the same tactics you can use against them. By and large, they rarely use "Attack" type moves either. Some enemies (and most bosses) also have a "Revenge" mechanic. That is, skills they only use if you've done certain things to them. Hit the Fire Elemental with a skill based in "Water", and it retorts with "Superheated Steam" against the whole party. A high damage attack that can inflict Burns. Oh sure, it takes a lot of damage from being hit with Water, but you can take a lot of damage back if it seeks revenge. It forces the player to consider that not everything has an "obvious weakness" or that the "obvious weakness" might be a trap. The player can prepare to exploit the obvious weakness, however. If they've got resistance to Water or Burn, Superheated Steam may do very little to them. But, they may not know this on a first attempt.

I even have enemies that will do something different to you if you inflict states on them. I have a boss that if you inflict him with Poison Level 1 or Level 2, he will inflict you with Poison Level 4 as revenge. Now, an "Antidote" cures all levels of Poison, but Poison 4 is quite deadly. It drains 20% of your maximum health each turn.

Oh, that's another thing. My states are pretty powerful. Game changers. consider the contrast from Level 1 Poison which inflicts 2% HP damage a turn for 3-5 turns... to Level 4 poison which inflicts 20% HP damage a turn for 12-15 turns. Especially consider that you can inflict enemies with these states. Level 1 Blind only reduces accuracy by 25%... Level 4 Blind reduces it by 100%. Etcetera. The low level stuff is what you're inflicted with and have access to early in the game, but the high level stuff is what you get hit with later in the game and can use on enemies.

I removed Dedicated Healers as well. White Mage? What's that? Nobody in my setting has any Healing Magic at all. The closest you get is a Cleric who is Immune to most States and who can cure all the states from a single party member each turn. By and large, the player is going to be spending turns using Consumables on allies. Or, using them on allies outside of combat and feeling the pinch in their wallet. So, the player will need to play intelligently and be inflicted with as little damage as possible to save money and obtain more Consumables.

I divorced stats from my Level Ups as well. If you want to grind levels, you certainly can. They grant indirect power. If you want more stats, buy equipment (which is where the largest boosts to your stats will come from) or complete Quests to get awarded with a few stats. In this way, it is more difficult for players to "overpower" the game by mashing Attack... and it's also easier for me to balance an "open world" type game, in that I know about what equipment and stats the players will have at any given time. At the same time, I'm playing with lower stats. Party members start with roughly 10 points into any given stat (though some start much higher or much lower) and roughly 20 HP or so. The first enemies will deal 1 or 2 damage to you each hit. Enemies a little further into the beginning of the game will do 4-5 damage a hit on you if you're equipped properly or have the right stats. If you don't.. they can do upwards of 35-50 damage on you. They are designed around the stats you're meant to have at that point. The equipment you're meant to have. In the early game, you can only raise your HP by 5 points for each Quest. You can only raise your Attack/Defense type stats by 1 with each quest. Equipment will raise those stats by 1-5 for each piece. By midgame, you're gaining 20 HP/MP a quest and 5 points to any other stat per Quest. By endgame, you're gaining 100 HP/MP a quest and 20 points to any other stat per Quest.

Basically, I just have a ton of systems I've created simply to try to make my combat as "tactical" as possible. Things designed to funnel the player into making choices and keeping them from getting complacent. Want to wear the Heavy Armor all the time? Bad idea. Magic REALLY hurts you when you wear Heavy Armor. Want to wear Leather Armor all the time? Bad idea. Piercing damage hurts you a LOT. Want to use a Sword all the time? Bad idea, some enemies take very little damage to Slashing type attacks. Want to use a Magic Wand all the time? Bad idea, some enemies take very little damage from the "Magic" element.

The player has to consider their equipment constantly, their party composition, which skills they're using, if they have to use turns on Consumables, if an enemy may hit them with "Revenge", if a state infliction on an enemy would be more worthwhile than the other skills you have on hand, etcetera. It's all mostly designed to keep players from getting complacent.

Oh, the final component of my combat system? Each skill "Levels up" after completing certain Quests. The player is given two options at each juncture, making a total of 3 choices per skill. Those choices affect how the skill acts in combat and what it does. It can be on either end of the spectrum, or a mixture of both sides. Fire can be leveled up to inflict better versions of "Burn" at higher rates... or it can be leveled up to do a lot more damage. Or, you can take one of the options "in between" so you never get access to Burn Level 4, you never get access to the highest possible damage... But, you still inflict a good version of Burn and do a good amount of damage. Other skills work differently. They are usually choices between utility and power.

The player is asked to make choices. To interact with the world to find out which choices would be the best ones to make. The player is asked to not get too comfortable in their strategies and tactics. They are given the means to succeed and gain ground through clever use of equipment, stats, and skills.

You know what else I do? Expect my player to get Game Over screens. Not just that, but I try to make it happen with boss encounters. If I can't throw every tactic I know about my system at you... Then how can you make a tactical decision at all? Would you ever need to if I weren't trying to make you see "Game Over"?

 

[lianderson]

Resource management is an often over looked option.

 

[Milennin]

I think choice is one of the most important things. If a game makes me go like "well, I could do this, but if I do that and then that, it might turn out better for me", and when both options are still viable in their own way, but dependent on my preferred playstyle, then that's good. When the combat comes down to one superior way of beating everything, you erase strategy. So you need a number of skills that all do different things (and not just different damage numbers either), but are all valuable in their own unique ways.

 

[Aesica]

Most RPGs I've played, however, fall into this trapping: hit the enemy really hard and heal when your HP gets low until you eventually whittle your opponent's HP down. This doesn't make those games inherently bad, but I think it stops them from being as fun as they could be.

While I get what you're trying to say, "hit the enemy really hard and heal your hp when it gets low until you eventually win" is the inevitable goal of almost every RPG. The trick is to make the player do some work in order to best achieve this. If I can just spam Attack, Flare, and Curaja every round, then I'm achieving the "hit hard, heal when low" goal with minimal effort.

However...

If you have to:

• Identify an enemy's elemental weakness(es)
• Apply and manage debuffs (defense/magic defense and/or elemental resistance) to enemies
  
• Apply and manage buffs (attack/magic attack/other) to your party
• Manipulate/manage combo-based skills (use A to enable B for X turns), cooldowns, party MP equilibrium, and other things

Then achieving the desired state of "hit hard, heal when low" becomes a more tactical-based experience.

Someone out there, itching to reply: But managing buffs and debuffs is boring!

Me: That depends entirely on how you design them. Defensive debuffs can be tied to attacks instead of existing as their own effect. For example, 'Deals physical damage to the target and reduces DEF/MDF by 50% for 3 turns' allows the player to still deal damage to the target, even if the primary reason for using this ability was to apply its debuffs.

You can also use cooldowns, so 'Reduces the target's DEF by 75% for 1 turn, 5 turn cooldown' means you'll want to use this ability only when everyone else is ready to deal their highest possible damage on the next turn.

Finally, if you have more party members than the active party size allows, you can really deepen the strategy element by not allowing everyone to do everything in a way that makes everyone useful in some way. Just be sure to allow mid-battle party member switching so this extra layer of strategy doesn't get suppressed.

 

[HeathRiley]

You need to put some thoughts into skill behaviour and damage relations, and then put even more time into playtesting to get the correct numbers - after all, with attack bashing no balance is needed at all.
...
But to retrain your players into thinking, you need to group the possible action into different types and make sure that each enemy can only be beaten by the correct mix of types and make sure that the players know this before they get into those fights. If they need to randomly test which skill makes the best effect, that would be contrary to your intentions.
Most professional games adapted a damage-triangle for this, but that is only limited strategy. More options would reduce your target audience however...

I think these are pretty good points. -strategy for strategy's sake, or taking time to make something thought provoking, but not enough to drive people away. Is it fun and does it take a little thought? If you have too much going on you might have a smaller niche crowd. "Disgaea 5" has systems on systems(traits, groups, weapon enhancements character class/subclass and enhancements, etc), and requires gratuitous amounts of exp grinding using strategy to get the most out of everything, but that's too much for most gamers.

While not a battle system, I think it is relevant to the idea of strategy. I was really put off by Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2's placing map pieces for your world map. You built your world map by placing the areas down that you would visit, this would result in different rewards/events depending on how things were connected. But I never felt I truly understood the rewards and felt I would miss out. If things aren't laid out well enough or clear, that can be very off putting

While I get what you're trying to say, "hit the enemy really hard and heal your hp when it gets low until you eventually win" is the inevitable goal of almost every RPG. The trick is to make the player do some work in order to best achieve this. If I can just spam Attack, Flare, and Curaja every round, then I'm achieving the "hit hard, heal when low" goal with minimal effort.

However...

If you have to:

• Identify an enemy's elemental weakness(es)
• Apply and manage debuffs (defense/magic defense and/or elemental resistance) to enemies
  
• Apply and manage buffs (attack/magic attack/other) to your party
• Manipulate/manage combo-based skills (use A to enable B for X turns), cooldowns, party MP equilibrium, and other things

Then achieving the desired state of "hit hard, heal when low" becomes a more tactical-based experience.

...

I feel like this is also true and done several different ways in different games. While Final Fantasy 7 boiled down to using the strongest attack at the end, there were many neat steps before getting there, and the part i think many people enjoyed was placing their materia (spells and enhancements) into correct pairs to get new effects.

In Persona 4, Identifying enemy weakness and taking advantage of that was a main part of the game (and in the other persona/smt games as well) Many people would also suggest getting a specific persona (basically a monster that gives you certain abilities) that could debuff your enemies for boss fights. This required getting specific personas from different areas and fusing them together( he has to be made by fusion, and cannot be found in the wild). By having these requirements, it takes you a couple thinking steps to get the reward.

 

[Eschaton]

The objective in any battle in a turn-based RPG is to reduce the enemy's HP to 0. If "strategy" is "how you achieve your objective," then I'd say that "mashing Attack" is a viable strategy.

The real question being asked is "how do I get the player to use the cool attacks I put in the game?" Easier asked than answered.

EDIT

I will try to answer.

1. Keep mechanics simple enough to be so intuitive that the player doesn't need a tutorial.

2. When you introduce a new mechanic to the player, you should also present a challenge that the new mechanic is effective against. It should be a very easy challenge. The player will be inclined to try out their new toy, and they should be assured very early that it is effective.

3. The utility of said mechanic needs to be consistent. The player needs to be able to rely on it every time they run into the challenge that mechanic is supposed to overcome. If it only works some of the time, the player might be discouraged to use it.

4. Finally, you have to force the player to use the mechanic by introducing counter mechanics that require your cool attacks. Perhaps the player needs to BREAK the enemy's defense before making an all-out offense, for example.

 

[woootbm]

The real question being asked is "how do I get the player to use the cool attacks I put in the game?" Easier asked than answered.

I see you around and I always love your clinical deconstruction of game mechanics, heh.

For me, I put it- perhaps- more cynically. I find my question is "how do I get the player to break away from the bad habits taught to them by the over-simple RPG's out there?" I've had people complain my game is too easy (it is, indeed, easy) while also watching players lose party members because they ignore the necessary skills to beat an encounter. Like, I gave you a skill to negate all healing! Don't let the AI heal! >.<

Anyway, here are some additions I would suggest to that list there.

1. An ability needs to have a cool name, description, function, and visual SFX. If you call your ability "Fire 1", and its description is that it "does moderate fire damage", that's not terribly enticing. If it's "Napalm Evisceration" and it "completely melts armor off a target and burns them horribly", you might get their attention. Of course, game balance will need to be maintained, but this was an extreme example.

2. Cost Vs. Usefulness. Players are insanely stingy. If an ability is barely better than the base attack... man, I'm just gonna use the base attack. I mean, it's free!

3. Straight up remove basic attacks from the game. This choice will require a boat-load of ability design, but it can be done.

4. Combat fatigue. And here we are. This one is actually a term used by AAA game companies and such. It's a general concept that players will get bored doing the same thing over and over again (combat) and need either distractions (non-combat objectives, or different kinds of combat like "turret sections") or quality of life improvements to combat. This can mean all kinds of things like: having less combat, having combat resolve faster, faster animations, better UI flow, and so on. I bring this up because combat fatigue is often what will cause players to become complacent and spam attack rather than actually fight properly. I know we all like to think our games are super interesting, but even the best of the best games struggle to keep combat fatigue down.

 

[Astfgl66]

I'll quote a post I made a while ago on the topic of what do you think makes turn based combat fun.
It's not exactly the same thing, but it overlaps a lot:

Turn based combat needs to have the possibility of well thought out choices, (As opposed to ATB where you must make choices quickly).

You basically give the player all the time he needs to plan his actions based on things he thinks will come, so you should provide him with meaningful choices.

To achieve this feeling your battle system will need, imho:

-Clear enemy patterns so that the player can effectively plan.

Let's say you have an enemy that first tries to put one of your party member to sleep and then every time he sees an enemy sleeping launches a one hit kill on that party member. Except the very first time, the player will clearly know what will happen, and then can make choices accordingly. Kill the enemy before it can launch the attack or heal the party member? Other examples: an enemy that counters every 4 turn for massive damage. Maybe an enemy that deals more damage when alone accompanied by debuffers or glass cannons...

-Varied toolboxes for each hero. No hero should do everything, but the player should not feel like "Well, this is death now" except if they've dug their graves, obviously, by letting the healer die and having no items anymore, for example...

-Careful balancing.

I like the Etrian odyssey series for this, check it out if you can.

Balancing and clear enemy patterns are paramount. If I can't plan for your enemies, then I won't bother with a strategy.
You then obiously need a lot of testing and balancing by introducing enemies that use deeper and deeper strategy.

I find that in most threads dealing with this, the discussion tends to gravitate around what heroes can do most, and I think it's not the full answer. Having enemies actually use strategy against you is the best way to make player use strategy in my opinion.
Get creative with your encounter design, but not random. Predictable enough that I have a way to guess, and then throw a curve ball every once in a while to keep me on guard.

 

[Rhaeami]

It's somewhat overkill, but my solution in my own games has been twofold: First, remove standard attacks. Second, introduce some unique quirk to the battle system that forces the game - and the strategies you use in it - to revolve around that quirk.

For example, in my game Pale Echoes, you have a collection of characters that each get to use one skill before disappearing for the battle, and the more characters you have the longer your "time limit" is. This not only forces you to make the most of their skills, but makes everyone worth having just to extend the time limit. It also fundamentally changes Healing's role, since it's always a damage race and every heal means one less attack. The final ingredient, of course, is enemies that are especially vulnerable to certain strategies - big groups for aoe, and such. The primary disadvantage of the system was that it involved too much trial and error.

Some professional gimmick examples are Final Fantasy XIII and Xenosaga 2, which revolved entirely around inflicting and capitalizing on game-wide crowd control states depending on enemies' vulnerabilities and timing. Neither has "standard" attacks since everything ties into those systems. Even spamming "attack" is about either building or capitalizing on that. Note that both of these games suffered from poor pacing in actually teaching the player these systems, leading many to simply ignore said systems and slog through at a snail's pace.

In all these cases, the player "strategy" comes from learning the quirks of the system and not having the option of using the same tools against all enemies. I'd also look to Horizon Zero Dawn as an action parallel - it's a game all about hunting things with a bow and arrow that you have no business hunting with a bow and arrow, and so you learn to make bombs, traps, etc. just because nothing else works.

I'd also add that a key is that, in all these games, battles aren't actually hard once you learn what strategy works.

 

[Eschaton]

I see a lot of people advocating the removal of the basic "Attack" command. Though it might be a bit of a weasel, it is a no-cost, no-effort option which asks for the least amount of button presses and the player deserves to have it. You take out "Attack" and you have a core combat experience that consists of navigating menus. Menus are lame.

"Attack" is to the turn-based RPG what jumping is to Super Mario Bros. It is how you travel the path between "enemy is at full HP" to "enemy is dead." The other skills is how you navigate the detours the designer forces you to take. Sure you might have to debuff here or defend there, but the path always leads back to "attacking until the enemy is dead."

 

[Astfgl66]

That point is easily dodged by actually making a UI that isn't bad, like MV's default UI is.
Get rid of the basic UI, don't give players too many skills and have them be intuitively accessed and you'll find that the player's willingness to use skills will be much higher.

You don't need a basic attack command. There are many games that get rid of it and that are insanely successfull, I'll just cite pokemon for the best known example.

The best option in my opinion if you must keep basic attack is to give it other effects. This was masterfully done in octopath traveler, for a recent example.

 

[Aesica]

The best option in my opinion if you must keep basic attack is to give it other effects.

This was roughly my approach. For awhile, I was considering also removing Attack, but I've since decided to keep it, but in a somewhat-repurposed way.

1. Attack "morphs" into an attack ability based on equipped weapon. Generally this will be something like "Slash" or "Shoot" but it can also become something more exotic by equipping, say, a Fire Rod or Healing Staff. You know, kind of like using the various magical rods and staves in FF4 though the item menu, but it's done via the attack command instead.
   
2. The actual attack modifier is intended to weaker than other abilities: x1 generally, so it's not an optimal way to kill enemies quickly, but it's still a no-cost option that isn't restricted by skill-sealing states.
   
3. Basic attacks also increase the limit break gauge (TP rebranded) much faster than the more specialized skills.
4. My skills in general have reasonable MP costs and there's a lot of MP recovery abilities, so the player shouldn't feel like they have to hoard MP until they reach the boss or some other hard fight.

 

[kirbwarrior]

I see a common theme of "decrease enemy HP to 0 to win" and yet... is that necessary? In Fire Emblem, a few in the series are considered "boring" because the map objective is always the same; In Birthright it's rout the enemy. In Binding Blade its Seize the Throne. Why should bosses, or even regular encounters, follow the same rules? Boss fights could change things up, such as surviving so long, or merely get each enemy to have a state, or fully heal the party (such as through drain attacks or something), or just convincing the boss to stop fighting you (which damage might allow such as through decreasing morale). Random encounters don't have to follow suit either; One area you're traveling through could be filled with bandits who aren't out to kill you but cripple you through states and steal your stuff. Those encounters might only last one turn and the point is to figure out the best way to balance time, resources, and a need for exp out in the area (for instance, some players might try to find a way to kill the thieves in that one turn for max exp, another player might focus on making it so escape is guaranteed and never actually deal with them, etc).

 

[Eschaton]

@kirbwarrior, I mean... you could have non-standard victory conditions. But I don't see the point. RPG equals combat, after all.

 

[kirbwarrior]

RPG equals combat, after all.

Oh, my point wasn't to take away combat, it was to change up what the victory condition of combat is. For instance, I've been recently thinking on a project idea that started with "The main character is incapable of dealing damage, how do I approach this?". The idea became that most enemies are metaphorical "zombies" and that you beat them by fully healing them. But the actual enemy are "demons" that are turning people. The demons have to be actually killed, but people you want to heal. I was even thinking that in battles with both (mostly would be bosses, at least early on), you could heal the people fully, then if they are fighters they would fight the demon, and the demon would harm humans (maybe even all at once) to either "heal" them if they are in zombie state or actually hurt them back to 0 to bring them to zombie state. Basically, the mechanics are the same but the victory conditions change. Battles still end by throwing enough numbers at the enemy, but sometimes those numbers are green. That's a simple change.

Lets say we have a simpler game with four characters who have a total of 7 skills each (including Attack and Defend or whatever replaces them). That's 28 skills. You could vary up how to get the player to use those skills to always decrease every enemy's HP to 0, but you can also vary the victory conditions and then different skills become better for the job. Just as an example in some older games, both FF6 and Star Ocean 3 play around with "MP 0 = Death" and some bosses are blatantly easier to beat that way. No skill is different, but how you even approach the battle is now a part of the strategy.

As for specifically pushing away from "Spank and Tank", just something as simple as the boss stealing healing or outright countering it can make you realize that you can't out attrition the boss. I think another that could definitely help is something I love in tactical games; Show everything. Show enemy HP, stats, weaknesses, and maybe even moves. The difficulty then comes in using this information properly and figuring out the AI. The game can be much easier to move around since it becomes possible to learn what the enemy might try to do and when instead of playing mostly reactively like many rpgs do. One big thing I notice a lot when playing turn-based rpgs is that it's hard just to know how a given boss differs from other bosses since their respective gimmick might not be fully realized until third turn or later, so I end up making parties that have a "bring all comers and hope" build and plan.

Hmm, I guess a slight change is you could read "Victory conditions" as "Enemy Loss Conditions" and it still makes sense.