Tactical or FF Battle system?

[Tacticalman]

This is of couse a poll,
so you should vote.
I want a Tactical RPG, thus my username,
but i cant figure out the movement.

[vespuleth]

how are you trying to do the movement? i think i may be able to help...

oh yeah, and if you want a tactical rpg, why the poll? why not just ask doan and i to help you write one? im not goin to vote yet. i really think it just depends on the game. so that we are able to give a good, honest opinion of what would be better, you should inform us of what your game is goin to be like first, as well as some of the features you want to implement into each bs.

[Draygone]

Considering the fact that many tactical RPG battles can take upwards of 20 mins to a whole hour, I wouldn't want to use the system if the rest of the game was like other RPGs, with running around a whole bunch of dungeons, fighting random battles, bosses at the end, overworld map that you wander with said random battles, etc. Otherwise, the game will be way too long (unless it's restricted to a couple dungeons) and people will quit before they even get close to the end.

[vespuleth]

yeah, tactical battles would be a no go if you had random battles w/ any sort of high frequency.

[Deleted]

I'd rather see something a little more unique, or at least one of those well-done.

FFT's 8x8 or so maps made for very little strategy, but rather power for victory. There was really no way to avoid confronting enemies others than height restrictions with certain classes (namely Knight) if they came up, which meant every person had to be able to take a good amount of *crap* from enemies (rendering mages ineffective, as well as the cast time getting incredibly long later on too, with penalizing mages with higher and higher MP costs AND cast times and fighters with nothing as they each went on to get newer moves). TO:LUCT (Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together) on the other hand had very big maps, which allowed strategy to be implimented because everyone wasn't in range of each other at almost all times. TO:LUCT also had more strategy involved because if a unit only "Waited" on their turn they'd get their next turn in 1/4 their WT (Wait Turn, like time passing), if they only "Acted" or "Moved" they'd get their next turn in 3/4 their WT, and if they "Acted" and "Moved" they'd get their turn in 1 their WT. This allowed the player to tactfully plan their actions more instead of simply everytime the given character goes they move and attack/cast because they might as well. The MP was also done more strategically in that MP filled up as time went by for everyone equally and fairly, so a mage wasn't capable of only casting so much magic per battle, and they were capable of always casting a light costing spell every turn, which balanced out the whole mages can only attack (magic) so much where as a fighter can infinitely attack (attack). Another prime example of this is Brigandine, which allowed for more strategy by forcing you to use several (16 characters minimum to win (if not Lance or Cai - they had an alliance so you could rely on the other to do almost everything as my brother once got real lucky and did)) teams of 3 all at the same time in different battles in different parts of the world, and had hexagonal panels instead of squares - which allowed more possible formations and moves to do. A lot of strategy (both of these are good examples of this) also results from having a good size team (not 5!) because then each unit can have their own purpose instead of every unit having every purpose (some kind of attack and "Item"). Also, FFT was horribly unbalanced: Orlandu, Agrias, Ninjas, Lancers, and Summoners made every other class and special class very crappy, along with most of the abilities besides those of the aforementioned classes and Chemist. TO:KoL (Tactics Ogre: A Knight of Lodis) was a huge let-down in the map size issue too. TO:KoL also shows that for strategy battle systems to work well units must die in less than 12 attacks when you only have 8 party members (TO:LUCT had a lot of strategy because units could easily die in 2 attacks). FFTA also shows the negatives of map size.

The FF battle system does beat the Dragon Warrior battle system of course, but there are ways it is bad too. First off, since the battles simply consist of taking turns attacking each other than healing when neccessary, they get boring very quickly. Often times too, fighters' best attack was their normal attack (FF5, some of FF6, FF9), in random battles you were encouraged to only use normal attacks because of a shortage of MP (FF5, FF6), characters had very little options of what to do at any given time (FF5, FF6, FF9), characters' moves weren't variable much at all (FF6, FF9); which led to all random battling getting boring fairly early throughout the game. (I did not address FFX or FFX-2 here because they have different battle systems) (Another negative is often a lack of characters available (FF8!), which really doesn't have to do with the battle system)

What I would like to see is something new (like what I posted in Doan's game's topic at the Pavilion around the 3rd to last page or so).

Nonetheless, the importance isn't which, but (I believe) how.

[Draygone]

I don't mind if a game has a lack of characters. I do mind if there are a bunch of characters, only those in the party gain XP (or more XP than the other members), and the members not in the party eventually have to fight a level 40 monster when I left them at level 15. Sure, I could and do level them evenly, but that shouldn't be necessary in any game at all.

[Doan the Nado]

On a strict comparison basis, I prefer tactical fighters. For me, holding down X in every random battle gets really annoying. Some good issues were brought up though, in that it would also get old to have to fight through a difficult battle every 10 steps. Some games (like FFX, in some boss battles) feature some tactical movement blended in with a more classical style, and I would think that would be a good system even in a game with semi-frequent random battles.

The most important thing to do, however, is find balance and a system that fits your game. If you have battles that require a lot of thought and time, you'll want them to be less frequent. If you make a battle system that relies on frequent attacks, try to do something to mix it up a little bit.

Any system can work well if properly implemented,

Doan the Nado

[Deleted]

So have you come up with an idea of how your battle system's gonna be?

[NASH7777]

If ya go tactical, you can have a long game with lots of battles if you keep it interesting. Have lots of spells and upgradable stuff for characters. More classes=more fun too! Actually I had started one a while back. It was really good other than a few buggy anoying things. But I needed memory space and I could have made it so much better. but someday I'll start making one again. The AI was quite good too. It checked allsorts of conditions like what % of health you had to what % of health they had and stuff to determine what they would all do. Just put a lot of time in it and visual effects and all that and you'll do well. ;D

[The zoradude]

Definatly go with the FFT BS. I remeber years ago when I got FFT I could not put it down. I still play it even to this day. Heck just 2 weeks ago I was playing it... Remeber make sure you have classes and lots of weapons/spells. I would love to play that. Sadly even if you made it I couldn't...... *sniff*

[Tacticalman]

Yeah Im gonna. anyways, I should have class options up soon. ;D