What do you dislike in ATB Systems?

[DoubleX]

This time I want to know what are disliked in specific atb systems or the atb system concept in general. Just feel free to share that

For instance, I dislike atb systems with:

Fixed atb wait condition - Sometimes I might want to be more relaxed, so I might want the atb wait condition to be true whenever a party member can act(the loosest atb wait condition); Sometimes I might want more challenges, so I might want the atb wait condition to be true only when an action's executing or a message's displaying(the strictest atb wait condition). Therefore as a player, I want to be able to change the atb wait condition on the fly.

Hidden actor atb bars - To me, it's like hiding the actor hp, mp and/or tp bars. As atb bars display their actors' atb values, which is one of the most important information in atb system battles, I want to be able to keep track of them easily. At least, if the actor atb bars are hidden by default, I want to be able to change that to be shown instead.

 

[Rhaeami]

This was a big issue in the relevant Final Fantasy entries, but it really gets to me when the ATB continues to move while casting animations are going off, especially if you don't have the game "wait" during menu browsing.  You can use your ultimate attack, and by the time it's done your enemies have queued up like 6 attacks in response.

 

[Eschaton]

Nobody has done them right. They're always so slow, with lulls in the action which defeat the purpose of real-time combat.

 

[DoubleX]

Nobody has done them right. They're always so slow, with lulls in the action which defeat the purpose of real-time combat.

Do you mean the actor/enemy atb bars always refill(from empty to full) too slowly?

 

[Eschaton]

^ Yes. This is the developer's fault, too.

Final Fantasy VI sticks out as a serious offender in my opinion. Enemies only seemed to wait until your turn to attack.

As for animations and ATB bars, that's also the developer's fault. If you want long animations, don't opt for a real time combat system. Animations for ATB games should be short snd to the point.

 

[DoubleX]

^ Yes. This is the developer's fault, too.

Final Fantasy VI sticks out as a serious offender in my opinion. Enemies only seemed to wait until your turn to attack.

As for animations and ATB bars, that's also the developer's fault. If you want long animations, don't opt for a real time combat system. Animations for ATB games should be short snd to the point.

Or just stops the atb bars when the animation's playing

On a side note, I also dislikes ATB systems with long animations(like those with 30+ seconds, I think I can stand up to roughly 20 seconds)

P.S.: Actually the skill/item animation length can be used for skill/item balancing if the atb does run even when animation's playing, but in this case, the animation length need to be extremely well-calculated in order to work lol

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

I second the no-wait during animations and such, I'd rather play a full action battle system in that case...

 

[Wavelength]

It actually annoys me when enemies don't attack while you browse menus.  This to me completely defeats the purpose of an ATB-gauge; you're just adding useless wait times to a Phantom Brave-like "Turn Points" system.  Cut out the middleman and just skip to the next battler's turn!  The whole point of a true ATB system (to me at least) is the need to decide what you want to do quickly and to react to any situation at a moment's notice.

Following this thought, convoluted interfaces are a major annoyance in a true ATB system because the challenge should be in figuring out what you want to do within a second or two - it should not be figuring out how to do it.  Any menu system that can't be navigated with a total of 3 buttons or can't select any action with 3 button presses (not counting the D-pad arrows) is a poor system for an ATB.

Finally (and this is only relevant to battle design, not to making the ATB itself), it's a huge shame when spamming attack is a good way to win battles in an ATB system, because again it defeats the purpose of thinking quickly (or even thinking at all).  Such a system would be functionally no different from a turn-based system where spamming attack is a winning strategy.

 

[DoubleX]

It actually annoys me when enemies don't attack while you browse menus.  This to me completely defeats the purpose of an ATB-gauge; you're just adding useless wait times to a Phantom Brave-like "Turn Points" system.  Cut out the middleman and just skip to the next battler's turn!  The whole point of a true ATB system (to me at least) is the need to decide what you want to do quickly and to react to any situation at a moment's notice.

Following this thought, convoluted interfaces are a major annoyance in a true ATB system because the challenge should be in figuring out what you want to do within a second or two - it should not be figuring out how to do it.  Any menu system that can't be navigated with a total of 3 buttons or can't select any action with 3 button presses (not counting the D-pad arrows) is a poor system for an ATB.

Finally (and this is only relevant to battle design, not to making the ATB itself), it's a huge shame when spamming attack is a good way to win battles in an ATB system, because again it defeats the purpose of thinking quickly (or even thinking at all).  Such a system would be functionally no different from a turn-based system where spamming attack is a winning strategy.

So for any ATB to work, it needs to demand players to play speed chess(make decisions extremely quickly), and any working decision has to be well-thought(so button mashing or spamming will seldom work). With actor, skill/item and target selection hotkeys, and proper battle balancing, the above requirements can be met, although with lots of extremely tough challenges.

This somehow reminds me of competitive RTS, where quick yet thorough decision making and high APM(including hotkey masteries) are integral to almost all pro RTS players

Of course, games implementing ATB this way will generally be exceptionally hardcore lol

 

[Eschaton]

^ Yes, but with leeway. Maybe difficulty directly affects the speed of battles: hard makes them fast, easy makes them slow.

Edit: whenever I played an old-school Final Fantasy game in which I could adjust the speed of battle, I never felt like I was making the game any more challenging by doing so. The games STILL felt slow.

 

[Dark Horseman]

ATB always felt like a mechanic to set pacing and give the feeling of faster enemies and characters, not to create some form of speed chess. If I want to feel rushed, I'll play an ARPG. ATB waiting isn't that bad either; it's literally like 1 to 3 seconds of inactivity between something happening. CTB eliminates like 10% of idleness but comes at the cost of poorer visualization ("why is it the boss's turn next, oh wait nevermind, I think he'll be fourth now because I cast a spell, wait why is Ethan next?").

 

[DoubleX]

ATB always felt like a mechanic to set pacing and give the feeling of faster enemies and characters, not to create some form of speed chess. If I want to feel rushed, I'll play an ARPG. ATB waiting isn't that bad either; it's literally like 1 to 3 seconds of inactivity between something happening. CTB eliminates like 10% of idleness but comes at the cost of poorer visualization ("why is it the boss's turn next, oh wait nevermind, I think he'll be fourth now because I cast a spell, wait why is Ethan next?").

Any ARPG needs space control and management(movements) to work, while it's at most just an option in ATB, meaning ARPG players need to control and manage both space and time, while ATB players just need to control and manage time. For those wanting to control and manage time(speed chess) but not space, ATB might be their choice.

 

[Wavelength]

So for any ATB to work, it needs to demand players to play speed chess(make decisions extremely quickly), and any working decision has to be well-thought(so button mashing or spamming will seldom work). With actor, skill/item and target selection hotkeys, and proper battle balancing, the above requirements can be met, although with lots of extremely tough challenges.

This somehow reminds me of competitive RTS, where quick yet thorough decision making and high APM(including hotkey masteries) are integral to almost all pro RTS players

Of course, games implementing ATB this way will generally be exceptionally hardcore lol

Yeah, I think that managing time as opposed to just turn order is essential to making an ATB work well.  It doesn't have to be super-demanding, just quick and challenging enough so that the player feels some motivation to move quickly.  And some people will still want to make games where the ATB stops when you're browsing menus and you should leave that in as an option in your script, but I feel they are headed in the wrong direction and I'll try to explain why using RPG Maker 3 (PS2) as an example.

In RPG Maker 3's battle system (link is an LP of a very good RM3 game but one that I think reveals a lot of the weaknesses in RM3's battle system), each character and enemy has an ATB that fills based on their agility stat.  It takes several seconds for the bar to fill up, and once it does, the battler gets a turn.  If the battler is an actor, you then look through the menu and select an action to use.  The ATB stops while you're looking through the menu, or while the battler is performing their action.  Then their ATB gauge empties, you wait until another battler has a full gauge, and they take their turn.

It doesn't sound too bad in theory, but the problem with this kind of ATB system is that it creates no sense of liveliness or action, and instead just introduces (long) waits where you can do nothing but watch the characters stand in place.  It is literally slower than a turn-based system.

The one thing it does add over, say, VX Ace's default system is that quick actors can take multiple actions before a slow actor takes one, which is a nice strategic wrinkle.  But we already have ways to do deliver this exact same mechanic in VX Ace (such as Charlie Fleed's CT in a turn-taking format that doesn't require the player to sit there and wait for a gauge to fill up.  Heck, I made a "Priority Points" system in How Badly Do You Want It? with about fifteen extra lines of scripting that essentially implements this mechanic (though not nearly as beautifully as the CT.

To justify the use of an ATB system, I think the system needs to offer something beyond "Turn Points" - it needs to offer an element where battle time passes as real time passes.  Doesn't need to be particularly punishing; just needs to offer some incentive to make quick and tactical decisions.

One more related thought (and maybe this belongs in the "What do you want in an ATB system" thread instead) - it would be great to have an option to allow players to select their characters' moves as their ATB gauge is filling up and then perform the queued action when it's full.  This is not the same as your "early discharge" idea (which allows the character to perform the action early) - it is simply a usability convenience that will allow players to have a tiny bit of "slack time" where they are not losing opportunities by taking a second or two to browse a menu, and will also help the player in situations where three or four of their characters are all reaching a full ATB gauge around the same time (so that the second and third character don't need to just sit there with a full ATB gauge and get hit by enemies while you select an action for the first).

 

[Eschaton]

This is what I love about Double X's and Victor Sant's ATB systems in that you can have certain attacks damage or cancel a battler's ATB progress.  An entire battle system can be designed around this mechanic alone (as I am doing).

 

[DoubleX]

So maybe another reason to dislike atb systems - It's so hard to implement properly lol(just saying)

 

[dungeon diver]

This is what I love about Double X's and Victor Sant's ATB systems in that you can have certain attacks damage or cancel a battler's ATB progress.  An entire battle system can be designed around this mechanic alone (as I am doing).

One of the first battle systems I noticed doing this was in Grandia, which was pretty fun.

 

[Lowell]

Another variant of that exist in the CTB systems, less so in FFX and moreso in the Trails in the Sky games, where certain actions had properties that would delay or outright cancel the enemies action. As far as ATB's are concerned, I feel it's best to let the player set what pace they want to fight battles at as it would give more leeway into who will and won't play your game.

The best ATB I've seen ever is probably tied between Grandia II & FFX-2. Canceling the enemies heavy hitting attacks was part of the fun in Grandia II and added s light sense of strategy on whether you attacked, canceled, or guard the incoming attack. FFX-2 was amazing since skills had charge times with the ATB bars, which could get progressively faster when the higher level skills were learned. It added a bit of variety in how you built the heroines skill sets in battle.

 

[Eschaton]

The best ATB I've seen ever is probably tied between Grandia II & FFX-2. Canceling the enemies heavy hitting attacks was part of the fun in Grandia II and added s light sense of strategy on whether you attacked, canceled, or guard the incoming attack.

Today, I learned, that the combat system I've been planning out for a year has been done already.

Either way, THAT is how ATB should be used.

 

[Frozen_Phoenix]

Sometimes the purpose of ATB in RM games is to make agility a relevant stat. In the default battle system agility is useless. The only thing I hate in ATB systems is when the bar fills very slowly.

 

[Wavelength]

So maybe another reason to dislike atb systems - It's so hard to implement properly lol(just saying)

I'd put it this way - the more elements you add (utility skills, custom stats, use of time, use of space, use of motion), the greater your risk and reward become.  Anyone can make a competent game of rock-paper-scissors, some people can make a competent DQ-style battle system, fewer can make a competent ATB battle system or platformer, and at the top of the line (with massive risk but plentiful payoff in fun) is full-on ABS/Action systems.

Sometimes the purpose of ATB in RM games is to make agility a relevant stat. In the default battle system agility is useless. The only thing I hate in ATB systems is when the bar fills very slowly.

I do love it when stacking up speed (Agility) becomes a viable build strategy.  But I'd note that in their baseline forms, a CTB (custom turn battle system like Charlie Fleed's) can implement this mechanic identically to an ATB.

It's largely for this reason that I would advocate always letting the action flow by in an ATB even while the player is working through menus (or implementing some kind of action, such as timed hits in the animations) into the system.  Because otherwise you're just working with a glorified CTB with a nifty interface but unnecessary bits of waiting.