So I'm looking into creating a turn-based RPG, think Pokemon/Final Fantasy 3 ect, and in those games you often randomly fight enemies, often annoying gangs of weak enemies.
My question is how do we, as designers, make sure these random battles don't get too tedious. How often is too often for these battles? Is a variety of enemies important, intelligent AI?
Discuss.
Random Encounters: How To Keep Them Fresh.
Very true. I recently finished playing pokemon red again for old times sake, and to be honest i found myself fighting countless wild pokemon to level up and it just got so damn boring. Because this is an RPG game, i would assume there is leveling up. The leveling up on its own provides incentive for players to fight enemies and you wouldn't necessarily have to make the enemies interesting, you could just create a large number of possible ways to defeat the enemy (attacks). Nevertheless it does get boring so here's my mini list of ideas.
- variety of enemies to fight
- strength of the enemies vary (challenging enemies can be annoying when trying to level up because you need to heal)
- 2 vs 1 battles, 3 vs 1 and so on
- repeatable quests (kill a certain # of enemies to claim a reward)
- Interactive attacks (certain and very few attacks have a coloured bar with green, yellow and red. And the closer you hit to the green the higher damage you can inflict.
- Alternate routes that are longer with very few monsters, and shorter routes with more monsters to provide choice.
- Boss monsters
and that's all i can think off for now
- variety of enemies to fight
- strength of the enemies vary (challenging enemies can be annoying when trying to level up because you need to heal)
- 2 vs 1 battles, 3 vs 1 and so on
- repeatable quests (kill a certain # of enemies to claim a reward)
- Interactive attacks (certain and very few attacks have a coloured bar with green, yellow and red. And the closer you hit to the green the higher damage you can inflict.
- Alternate routes that are longer with very few monsters, and shorter routes with more monsters to provide choice.
- Boss monsters
and that's all i can think off for now
Author
Thanks a lot for your suggestions, I particularly like this idea:
How would do you think this could be implemented without saying "This was is long but less to fight, this way is shorter with more to fight!" directly to the player?
Alternate routes that are longer with very few monsters, and shorter routes with more monsters to provide choice.
How would do you think this could be implemented without saying "This was is long but less to fight, this way is shorter with more to fight!" directly to the player?
I never played the games mentioned, so I throw in some ideas without the knowledge whether or not they fit...
Informations can be gathered from several impersonal and personal sources like
* maps (especially length of way)
* road signs (length of way, like "15 miles to Somewhere City")
* giving ways talking names (like "canyon of hairy monsters")
* travelogues (length of way as well as risks on the way)
* warnings on bulletin boards in cities (especially the risks)
* assignments of chasing monsters, available from public places in cities (especially the risks; side effect: can be interpreted as side quest)
* rumors, gossip, myths (if NPC interaction includes "speaking")
* explicit interrogation (if NPC interaction includes "speaking"), especially city guards, travelers, ...
...
How would do you think this could be implemented without saying "This was is long but less to fight, this way is shorter with more to fight!" directly to the player?
Informations can be gathered from several impersonal and personal sources like
* maps (especially length of way)
* road signs (length of way, like "15 miles to Somewhere City")
* giving ways talking names (like "canyon of hairy monsters")
* travelogues (length of way as well as risks on the way)
* warnings on bulletin boards in cities (especially the risks)
* assignments of chasing monsters, available from public places in cities (especially the risks; side effect: can be interpreted as side quest)
* rumors, gossip, myths (if NPC interaction includes "speaking")
* explicit interrogation (if NPC interaction includes "speaking"), especially city guards, travelers, ...
Dofus has a neat system where it randomly generates an "achievement" for each battle - completely optional, but if you do it you get bonus XP or bonus loot or a full heal at the end of the battle, etc. Example achievements are: fight the whole battle using only one character, use no magic, use only magic, win before turn 3, win without taking any damage.
Disgaea also has a cool system for keeping its randomly generated item world levels fresh, though it's a tactical game, not sure gow you'd adapt it to a combat system with no terrain. There is a puzzle involving colored squares on the floor and colored pyramids. The square the pyramid is on determines the status effect of all squares of that color. If you destroy a pyramid it does damage to everything standing on squares of that color, possibly including pyramids of other colors, which can set off chain reactions, or you can hit a lot of enemies at once or accidentally kill yourself. IIRC destroying a pyramid of color A while it is sitting on a square of color B converts all squares that were color A to color B. So if you can chain destroying the pyramid of color A and then the pyramid of color B, everything originally standing on a square of color A gets hit twice. And there's an xp/loot bonus if you destroy all the pyramids or chain all the pyramids.
Disgaea also has a cool system for keeping its randomly generated item world levels fresh, though it's a tactical game, not sure gow you'd adapt it to a combat system with no terrain. There is a puzzle involving colored squares on the floor and colored pyramids. The square the pyramid is on determines the status effect of all squares of that color. If you destroy a pyramid it does damage to everything standing on squares of that color, possibly including pyramids of other colors, which can set off chain reactions, or you can hit a lot of enemies at once or accidentally kill yourself. IIRC destroying a pyramid of color A while it is sitting on a square of color B converts all squares that were color A to color B. So if you can chain destroying the pyramid of color A and then the pyramid of color B, everything originally standing on a square of color A gets hit twice. And there's an xp/loot bonus if you destroy all the pyramids or chain all the pyramids.
Dofus has a neat system where it randomly generates an "achievement" for each battle - completely optional, but if you do it you get bonus XP or bonus loot or a full heal at the end of the battle, etc. Example achievements are: fight the whole battle using only one character, use no magic, use only magic, win before turn 3, win without taking any damage.
Oh wow this is a very good idea.
I've found with a lot of RPGs (particularly the older ones), they're set up so that if you fight every battle you encounter while going from point A to B, you will be of sufficient level and have about the right equipment to travel from B to C. It sorta makes sense when you think about it. The question then would be, how many battles do you want the player to encounter? Keeping the encounters fresh, seems to me, is just about finding a "magic number" that you figure is about right.
Providing two different routes from A to B sounds interesting. But is there a point to it when you're going to need to battle at least x characters to be of sufficient level and resources to survive the trip from B to C? Will it be more fun getting to that level of preparedness while on the road or walking around in circles just outside point B looking for encounters?
Providing two different routes from A to B sounds interesting. But is there a point to it when you're going to need to battle at least x characters to be of sufficient level and resources to survive the trip from B to C? Will it be more fun getting to that level of preparedness while on the road or walking around in circles just outside point B looking for encounters?
A lot of games are set up such that you'll encounter weaker enemies less-frequently -- essentially, when the enemy is certain of their defeat, they become "afraid" of the player and will avoid them. You could handle this interaction in very detailed ways -- say, certain enemy types are "Berserkers" or "Kamikazees" that simply don't care that they'll die, even if it amounts to just harassing the player, certain enemy types could be more afraid of certain party members (the giant rats are afraid of your saber-toothed tiger), attributes (wild animals are afraid of magic users) or items (vampires are afraid of the dude with a backpack full of oak stakes).
This kind of setup can also make balancing the game easier, as you will generally have a tighter band of attributes that you can anticipate the player having at each stage of the game, because they can't just grind to a high-level early on and coast through the rest of the game. If you're concerned about boxing out less-skilled players who might need the extra boost that grinding can provide, you can include dedicated grinding areas, or provide for other opportunities to gain experience (say, participating in gladiator-style battles, or leaving your mage with their guild to study.)
This kind of setup can also make balancing the game easier, as you will generally have a tighter band of attributes that you can anticipate the player having at each stage of the game, because they can't just grind to a high-level early on and coast through the rest of the game. If you're concerned about boxing out less-skilled players who might need the extra boost that grinding can provide, you can include dedicated grinding areas, or provide for other opportunities to gain experience (say, participating in gladiator-style battles, or leaving your mage with their guild to study.)
Dofus has a neat system where it randomly generates an "achievement" for each battle - completely optional, but if you do it you get bonus XP or bonus loot or a full heal at the end of the battle, etc. Example achievements are: fight the whole battle using only one character, use no magic, use only magic, win before turn 3, win without taking any damage.
I like that idea as well. It reminds me of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and the Judge/Laws system (which designated both restrictions and recommendations for each battle, and there were punishments and bonuses depending on whether or not you followed them), only less restrictive and more in line with modern gaming. I'd like to see that mechanic used in the future.
Keeping random encounters fresh is a pretty big problem, it's amazing that JRPGs haven't evolved this crucial element at all since the dragon quest days. I think there are a few things you can do to keep them fresh.
1)Have an interesting and dynamic combat system
Change the aesthetics of battle over time
Change the characters over time
1)
Have an interesting and dynamic combat system
You have to think of battles as puzzles. Is the puzzle fun to solve? In most final fantasy games it isn't. You press "attack" and maybe cast a spell until you win. The differences between the options are relatively small. By comparison, the Shin Megami Tensei games usually have very involved battle systems where you need to account for elemental strengths/weaknesses and turn order in order to not get killed. Organizing your team and then playing optimally against opponent's strengths and weaknesses is what let's SMT games get away with being so grind heavy. I know that "Make it fun" is a pretty bad suggestion, but I think it's important to stress that pressing "fight" 6 times makes for a pretty boring game.
2)
Change the aesthetics of battle over time
This is something I just noticed recently, but almost all RPGs have two battle songs, a normal theme and a boss theme (plus maybe a couple of special boss tracks). On top of that, the differences between the locations random encounters take place in are hardly noteworthy. After playing about 20 hours, random encounters become a stupid mini game you have to play once every minute instead of the crux of gameplay that they should be. While the characters are exploring new towns, caves, dungeons, etc. they're still fighting in a small room with same annoying guitar music.
3)
Change the characters over time
Players are kind of funny, they'll be secretly bored of playing the same characters throughout the game but they'll never change them because they've grown familiar with them. Force them to mix up their teams. I think this is actually a major part of what makes Pokemon consistently engaging. You rarely keep Pokemon on your team for more than a couple of gyms, so things are constantly freshening up. As long as you can justify the change with your story, the player will love it.
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