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Preventing the abuse of action points

Started by July 26, 2023 06:21 PM
4 comments, last by LorenzoGatti 1 year, 3 months ago

Hi there,

I'm working on a combat system for a JRPG-like game. The combat system uses action points to activate abilities. On each turn, the active character automatically gains some new actions points. Unspent action points may be spent during the next turn instead.

I'm facing the following balancing problem: Some characters have healing abilities. With an unlimited number of turns, a character may gain an unlimitied number of action points over time. Therefore, the player can heal all characters completely by using their healing abilities. This renders items like healing potions useless and players often don't need to use any healing items after combat. This mechanic can be abused especially when the enemy is pretty weak and only deals a tiny amount of damage every turn.

I don't want to limit the number for turns per battle. How can I prevent players from abusing the infinite amount of actions points? Or how can I incentivize players to use the healing items in their inventory?

Another option would be to simply remove the healing abilities and only rely on healing items. But then a player may run into a situation where he doesn't carry enough healing items and also can't buy or collect any further items.

If you really want to emphasise healing with items, not having heals is an option. I had a similar problem where my healing spell would make the healing items redundand, so I removed it. I later added an option to add a small leach via a spell, that only heals so much and only conditionally when you deal damage.

Another trick I learned from Darkest Dungeons is that you could add direct conditions to the heal-spells, ie. only usable under a certain percent of health of the target. If that is too restrictive, add a secondary effect to the spell, like removing a sort of debuff (what DD does).

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easy, copy cdbcs, aps you earn expire in one turn, therefore, the most ap you can have at any one turn is 2x, 1x from this turn and 1x from the previous turn

may even add depreciation, you carry over half the ap you didnt use

I asked my friend who seems to know everything about everything and this is what he said…

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Balancing the combat system in a JRPG-like game can be challenging, but there are several approaches you can take to address the issue of unlimited healing through action points:

  • Action Point Cap: Instead of allowing characters to accumulate an unlimited number of action points, you can implement a cap on the maximum number of action points a character can have. This cap should be set at a level that prevents players from using healing abilities indefinitely. It forces players to strategize and use their healing abilities wisely.

  • Diminishing Returns: Introduce diminishing returns on healing abilities based on the number of action points spent. For instance, the first few uses of the healing ability might be highly effective, but as more action points are invested, the healing amount decreases. This discourages players from spamming the ability too frequently.

  • Cooldowns: Implement cooldowns on healing abilities. Once a character uses their healing ability, they cannot use it again for a certain number of turns. This encourages players to use healing abilities strategically and rely on other means of healing when the ability is on cooldown.

  • Enemy Scaling: Scale the difficulty of enemies based on the player's level and/or the number of turns taken in battle. If players spend too many turns in a battle (trying to heal excessively), the enemies become stronger, making it more challenging for the player to succeed without using healing items.

  • Limited Resources: Make healing items scarce or expensive, so players must use them wisely and consider other healing options, such as healing abilities, only when necessary. This way, players will have to rely on a combination of healing items and abilities throughout the game.

  • Status Effects and Debuffs: Introduce enemies with status effects that cannot be cured by healing abilities, forcing players to use specific items or abilities to counter those effects. This creates a need for diverse strategies and resource management.

  • Varying Enemy Threats: Design enemies that pose different types of threats. Some may deal heavy damage, while others may have crowd control abilities or debuffs that make healing less effective. This requires players to adapt their approach and use healing resources more judiciously.

  • Boss Battles and Endurance Fights: Design certain boss battles or optional encounters as endurance fights where players face multiple challenging opponents in a row without a chance to rest or heal between battles. This forces players to conserve their resources throughout the entire series of battles.

By combining these approaches, you can create a more balanced and engaging combat system, where players need to think strategically and make meaningful decisions about when and how to use healing abilities and items.

🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂<←The tone posse, ready for action.

Of course accumulating “infinite” action points doesn't make sense.

The action points cap should be slightly more than the cost of the most expensive action + the maximum number of action points that can be earned in a turn + a small multiple of the expected accumulated APs of a turn with cheap or no actions, so that the player can save for an expensive action without wasting earned action points, can wait for a few turns before doing something for tactical reasons, but at some point they get punished for stalling.

Regarding the balance of healing actions and healing items, I'd try making both cost a significant number of action points, enough to limit and delay the following actions (i.e. a significant tactical choice: taking a break from the normal routine), with items healing much more (because, in addition to action points, a valuable resource is spent).

Omae Wa Mou Shindeiru

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