Ship/Vehice Battle Systems

[CosBlade]

I'm currently planning out a game in which you play as a group of pirates. The majority of the game actually takes place on land, and will likely use a turn-based battle system with some tweaks to allow battles to be a bit more involved than is standard for RPG Makers.

Because it's a pirate game, I want to allow the player to set sail and battle other ships to gain XP and loot. The only RPG I can look to for reference (that I know of) is Skies of Arcadia, which utilized a separate turn-based battle system for ship combat than it did for character combat.

This isn't bad, but I wonder if this may feel stale to most players? As cool as an action based ship combat system might be, this would likely prove the most difficult to implement, and the reality of sea battles was more about maneuvering and strategy than fast-paced action.

Something more along these lines is Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates, which has each ship displayed on a map in an almost board-game like setting, with winds and waves affecting ship motion while the two ships try to set themselves up for shots while also avoiding being shot by the enemy ship. (Attachment for reference.)

What do you guys think? I think I've got a really good story plotted out for the game, but I want to make sure the gameplay is still engaging. Has anybody tampered with something like this in RPG Maker yet?

 

[hadecynn]

Can't comment on the actual battle system or mechanics until there's a playable demo, but I want to point out something about player engagement.

You mentioned that the majority of the game will still be taking place on land with a more traditional battle system, and I assume that your regular battles will also give XP and loot. If that's the case, regardless of how you end up deciding to do your naval warfare battle part, make sure you check the "return on investment" for the naval battles compared to regular battles.

If it takes me 5 minutes of regular battle to get 100 XP and 3 loot, but your naval warfare takes 15 minutes to get relatively the same amount and with no other benefits, then at best your naval warfare becomes a mini-game/distraction, and at worst (if you force it on the player) it will detract from the experience and break up the flow of the game. 

Unless, of course, your naval battles are more engaging and interesting than your regular battles. But then you have a bigger problem to consider: why have the players spend the majority of their time in the less enjoyable system?

 

[CosBlade]

Can't comment on the actual battle system or mechanics until there's a playable demo, but I want to point out something about player engagement.

You mentioned that the majority of the game will still be taking place on land with a more traditional battle system, and I assume that your regular battles will also give XP and loot. If that's the case, regardless of how you end up deciding to do your naval warfare battle part, make sure you check the "return on investment" for the naval battles compared to regular battles.

If it takes me 5 minutes of regular battle to get 100 XP and 3 loot, but your naval warfare takes 15 minutes to get relatively the same amount and with no other benefits, then at best your naval warfare becomes a mini-game/distraction, and at worst (if you force it on the player) it will detract from the experience and break up the flow of the game. 

Unless, of course, your naval battles are more engaging and interesting than your regular battles. But then you have a bigger problem to consider: why have the players spend the majority of their time in the less enjoyable system?

These are very good points, and thank you for your insight!

Allow me to clarify some of my intentions regarding naval combat as well, as this is still in its early planning stages.

Most of the gameplay does take place on land, but it's not largely combat oriented, but instead story driven. There will be combat, but it's really secondary to exploration of and interaction with the game world. I want to avoid moments where the player must "grind" to proceed through the story. That being said, taking advantage of the optional sidequests (including pirating at sea) may make the main quest easier when it comes to those fights the player can't avoid.

There are only two naval combats the player *must* take part in. One at the beginning, to teach the player the mechanics, and one at the end. If the player has not upgraded their ship sufficiently, or is not confident in their sailing ability by the last battle, they may choose instead to ram the final boss ship and initiate a melee between the crews, which will rely on how much their characters have leveled up.

Pirating at sea will take more time per battle, and will result in the same amount of XP as a land melee, but it will result in an appropriately larger amount of loot, and also give the player the option to capture enemy ships for a fleet. Ultimately it would be an optional aspect of the game, but I don't want it to feel tacked on or boring.

I do want to achieve a balanced game in the end, as IMO poor gameplay will destroy a game even with an excellent story.

 

[HeathRiley]

I do like this idea and definitely wish you luck on it! As for what made skies of Arcadia decent in the airship battle area was a couple of things.

Slowly adding it added to the importance and differentiated it. You had slots to equip and an overall point value you couldn't surpass. This worked like armor and abilities / stats. The battle itself "felt" like it was on a different scale which was nice. I think you also chose a few moves at once. It was turn based but different enough that it worked.

Another game that handles scale difference in a neat way to look at is xenogears. It had boss battles on foot and in mechs, where the game play was similar but a few things tweaked to make it interesting.

Definitely consider part upgrades and making it feel different even if some battle characteristics are similar. Are there plans to add maps that will be traversed by the ship ? If the ship gets in battle often I would try to make battles a bit more streamlined than arcadia

 

[CosBlade]

My initial thoughts were to utilize a system similar to Puzzle Pirates without cloning it outright. If it's not a complete nightmare to code in RPG Maker, that is. I would like to have the player traversing the open sea in a fairly usual world map, with NPC ships going along certain routes (port to port, etc.) If the player ship bumps into the NPC ship, the player is then taken to a naval combat map. At this point it's basically a game of chess as the player attempts to position their ship to fire at the enemy ship, and vice versa. If the two ships collide again on the combat map, the crews board and the usual RPG maker turn-based fight breaks out.

The twist here would be that you can absolutely sink the enemy ship without boarding it, but you lose a lot of loot (as if it sinks or is destroyed in a prolonged battle). However the more damage a ship takes on, the more handicapped the crewmembers are when the melee breaks out. So ideally, the player blasts the enemy ship in the combat map as much as possible without sinking the enemy ship, and while evading cannonfire as much as possible. Then, the player rams the enemy ship to board it. Because the enemy crew is severely handicapped, and the player crew is not, the boarding fight is easy, and maximum loot is obtained because the player boarded the ship without sinking it.

I'm thinking that there may be other special moves the party can use during a ship boarding, that they would not have in a normal ground battle, on account of the number of weapons and of course other crew members. But this still needs more thought.

In my mind, it doesn't seem any more complicated than any other ARPG battle system, but I could be wrong.

 

[Kes]

@CosBlade

Please remember that this particular forum is meant for general discussion of the design of game mechanics.  While it can be illustrated by reference to a particular project, it is never about just one project.  If you want detailed feedback on the specific features of your individual game, I can merge this with Features Feedback.  Is that what you would like?

 

[CosBlade]

@CosBlade

Please remember that this particular forum is meant for general discussion of the design of game mechanics.  While it can be illustrated by reference to a particular project, it is never about just one project.  If you want detailed feedback on the specific features of your individual game, I can merge this with Features Feedback.  Is that what you would like?

I was hoping to stir a conversation about different options for such a system, as I only have my project to pull from for ideas. But I'm not picky about where it's at in the forums, so please feel free to set it wherever you see fit.

 

[Kes]

Okay, as long as it is a general discussion of this type of system, then it's fine to stay here.  

 

[CrazyCrab]

To be perfectly honest I had an amazing dream today which inspired me to focus on vehicle battles as well - it's weird, I know.

I originally planned to have the vehicle battles the same as land battles though, with some gameplay changes. 

What I had in mind was:

When travelling, you have a new party - 'Weapon systems', 'Hull', 'Engine' 'Crew' etc.

Then in combat as soon as Hull is out you lose, same for the enemy. Destroying it outright would be really difficult though, as the engine gives dodge boosts, the crew can keep healing the hull, etc. So while it would be quite complex to event during combat, it would give the game more depth as you'd need to target certain parts each turn and you would never know the enemy at a glance. Then you can improve these 'actors' with equipment etc. Then while on land you find these parts, invest in your ship, etc.

That said, a completely different system would nicely break up the combat. It sounds promising, but one of my worries is that when you offer two completely different combat systems you may end up with the players liking the other one far more, even though it's not nearly as present as the other one. An example would be AC Black Flag, where almost everyone I talked to said that the ship combat was awesome, the usual assassin stuff felt like being forced through the same mud all over again and wished that there was more boat stuff to do.

 

[CosBlade]

To be perfectly honest I had an amazing dream today which inspired me to focus on vehicle battles as well - it's weird, I know.

I originally planned to have the vehicle battles the same as land battles though, with some gameplay changes. 

What I had in mind was:

When travelling, you have a new party - 'Weapon systems', 'Hull', 'Engine' 'Crew' etc.

Then in combat as soon as Hull is out you lose, same for the enemy. Destroying it outright would be really difficult though, as the engine gives dodge boosts, the crew can keep healing the hull, etc. So while it would be quite complex to event during combat, it would give the game more depth as you'd need to target certain parts each turn and you would never know the enemy at a glance. Then you can improve these 'actors' with equipment etc. Then while on land you find these parts, invest in your ship, etc.

That said, a completely different system would nicely break up the combat. It sounds promising, but one of my worries is that when you offer two completely different combat systems you may end up with the players liking the other one far more, even though it's not nearly as present as the other one. An example would be AC Black Flag, where almost everyone I talked to said that the ship combat was awesome, the usual assassin stuff felt like being forced through the same mud all over again and wished that there was more boat stuff to do.

This is a pretty smart way of going about it! And I would think you could fairly easily implement an upgrade system by making the vehicle party members only level up by player selection once enough XP/money/whatever perishable system you want to use is earned. It seems like a system you could make more in depth depending on the preference of the game creator, too. Somebody looking for a quick fix could do this easily, but someone who wants to expand on it absolutely could. Great post!

 

[KKaos]

I have been messing around with the idea of ship combat as well. There is a script for it in VX ace, though it only modifies a few things it isn't a different battle system. I would be curious as to what system you would use for this. What battle system that is. Originally, I had planned for an action based ship shooter/twisted metal type thing using mode 7 for a more 3D feel, but I couldn't figure out how to have an ABS that wasn't always active so I am considering going turn based or scrapping the idea. My game features a couple pirates too, one of which is a main character. It would be cool to do ship combat for sure is for sure.

 

[Kes]

Interesting. I'd never noticed an Ace script for this. Do you have a link?

Thanks.