Can you provide an example of a situation a player would chose not the maximum dps way ???

A more beneficial sub-effect:
- Drain attack that returns HP in the equation (especially useful to avoid having to spend a turn healing)
- Stun effect, as it reduces the amount of threat the opponent can produce by further delaying their ability (having a slow effect is similar)
- Damage over time effect. This reduces DPS on hit, but increases maximum dmg dealt after a while (Poison was effective in Monster's Den and games like Diablo)
- Restore status effects when slowed by opponent for example. You just know that the damage race becomes a losing battle if your speed is halved, so you need to get rid of that status
etc.

This would restrict player freedom, like saying "you are allowed to stay at X place for only 10 min".

I agree, but perhaps the player should feel that sense of urgency. Many people complain that, while the end of the world is at hand, players spend 12 nights at the same inn before actually going into the fray and that's "ok". (My initial system also factored time passing by from spending nights, but I felt it was a bit punitive).

By the way, since we're drifting so far off, here is the link to the actual thread for this topic:
http://www.gamedev.net/topic/627204-weekly-discussion-week-2-rpg-genres-flaws-grinding/

@Orymus3

Let me rephrase:

Player's goal: max xp/min. reward/min..
how ? finish battle/dungeon as soons possible
What is the only way to achieve this currently: Max dps.

Drain attack that returns HP in the equation[/quote]
Yes it usefull in harder fights that are impossible to kill with max dps macro.
However against easy enemies, it is uneeded, i would rather wait my hp to be renewed to full after fight.

Total time to finish dungeon = F( Max dps )

This would be usefull if hp was a non-renewable resource, or a slowly renewable resouce outside combat.
If i used max dps i would have to wait to recover to full. Thus the total time to finish dungeon would increase.

Total time to finish dungeon = F( Max dps, Health )

Damage over time effect[/quote]
Yeah those are the spells that have the max dps so they are inside the max dps rotation.

Stun effect, as it reduces the amount of threat the opponent can produce by further delaying their ability (having a slow effect is similar)[/quote]
Ok i dispel the slow, or interrupt the stun, and continue my max dps sequence.
At least now it requires user intervention to maximize the dps, and i cant use a macro for the dispel/interrupt.

Total time to finish dungeon = F( Max dps, Health, User_Brain_To_Counter_enemy )

Total Player Reward = F ( Total time to finish dungeon )

Can we add more variables to the equation, so that we punish the macro spammers?

Yes what i proposed.

Total Player Reward = F ( Total time to finish dungeon, User unique ability usage, user finds secrets, user stealths, ... )

Like I said however, we're terribly off topic.
On that note, next week's topic will definitely be related to grinding as I believe we've reached a natural bridge here.

Ok, so, what I was trying to get at is that, I don't believe there is any simple catch-all method of reducing the reliance on the fight button without completely devaluing it, all other things being equal. My proposed solution would be to revise the number and quality of encounters, so that players never feel the need to settle into a rut; however, you make a good point about grinding, and I can definitely imagine many core rpg gamers being upset if this feature were completely removed. I think your ideas for training and/or optional areas would mitigate that, but possibly at the cost of throwing off the balance we've just worked to achieve.

Can you provide an example of a situation a player would chose not the maximum dps way ???
1) A player would only replace the 1 button max dps macro only if a situational effect grants him more damage.

Thus bots are always better than human players, because they can always follow the max damage rotation, automatically following the damage buff "ifs".

Note: a monster forces you to cancel the "max dps strategy" only if it kills you. If it doesn't kill you, it is cheaper (timewise) to finish it as fast as you can and heal to full in 1sec with no resource costs after the battle finishes.

I think here you are making a lot of assumptions about the nature of the game and the nature of the player. Not everyone is going to approach even a traditional rpg in the same way. Nowhere is it implied (and it's often not the case) that mashing fight will provide the maximum damage per second, and in a turn based rpg I find it unlikely that most players even care about dps in terms of strategy, rather, when playing strategically a player will consider damage per turn and enemy damage per turn, but if the player starts thinking in terms of dps they have probably already abandoned all strategy. On the other hand, I agree that once a player settles into a one-button rut, they will probably not break out of it unless the game forces them to. But, I don't think that's because they want to play in such a single-minded manner, I think it's just because the game allows them to.

I dont agree, just because a game is bugged doesn't mean that everyone that uses this system is bugged.
Oblivion was bugged because :
1) unlimited hp monsters : regenerating trolls were unkillable and took hours to kill, and it was only a crappy trash mob, that you met every 10 steps.
2) unlimited damage monsters, 1 shot : Also there were some fiora humanoid monsters that just 1shotted you with their elemental spells.

In my game a lvl 1 monster is as hard as a lv 100000 monster when you fight em at same level. Why is that ? because i don't switch their monster type, a goblin remains the same, just higher level.

I wasn't implying (nor do I believe) that Oblivion was 'bugged', just that the incentive to improve was reduced (not removed entirely) compared to the other Elder Scrolls games. Also, the goblin thing is basically what I was getting at. If level in your game is just an arbitrary or abstract concept that will be manipulated at will to balance difficulty, fine, but if level is a number intended loosely to measure the combat prowess of a creature (as in D&D) then it just seems silly to say that the goblins gain levels to match my own. Certainly, some goblins might have higher and others lower level, and the average level might change as the game progresses, but not implicitly as my characters develop, otherwise there is no benefit to developing my characters (and no, I don't agree that people want bigger numbers just for the sake of bigger numbers, those numbers have to mean something to be interesting at all).

Hmm, my suggestion would be multiple ways you can beat a boss with different side-effects. For example, if you go the max DPS way the boss will explode and destroy the weapon that you want to collect. Or you can knock the boss out and get past just using basic attacks, but you need special moves to actually kill the boss and get the full rewards. I do like the idea of a boss having different modes where different tactics will work better, but I'm not a fan of "this boss is 100% invincible unless you use the right attack". It's not so bad if there's a dominating strategy but the strategy changes during the fight, and you can win without the dominating strategy.

I remember Mount&Blade used a similar system where you could just go through with whatever uber longsword you could get your hands on, but the second you wanted to become a slave driver (and hence, collect slaves) you had to find a way not to kill everyone and make prisoners. You had to pick the underpowered blunt weapons to knock'em down instead.

I've toyed with the idea of having battle tactics alter end of battle loot. For example, if you use fire, you burn whatever is consumable, etc. In the end, I felt this kinda broke creativity with a bunch of unclear rules. Having a rating system felt a bit simpler, but even so, the idea is to give the player incentive to be creative, not force them altogether, and preventing them from getting the loot is bad.

I'm a believer in REMOVING THE EXPERIENCE SYSTEM ALTOGETHER. If grinding doesn't help you, fights are there solely for attrition. Basically, you build a character at the beginning of the game, and that is your character for the game. Of course you could put in spots where you could swap skills.

But that's not really about the fight command. Now, off the top of my head, if I was making something that *looked* like a JRPG (people would argue whether it actually IS one or not), I would do the above and some of these things:

1. Definitely make weaker characters/monsters less able to fight.

2. Create some kind of "triggering" system. For instance, instead of hitting "fight" the heavy hitter readies himself. When a quicker character attacks and (%-based) staggers an enemy, that triggers a huge attack. Or a character guards another, and when the guarded character is targeted the guarder takes the dmg (if it hits, quick chars could gard too) and then executes a couter attack.

3. Add attacks that have less % to hit but do more dmg, add attacks that reverse that formulae, add attacks where a player can attack at half his AP bar filled but lower % to hit, add team attacks that focus on one enemy but leave chars easier to hit/dmg'd more if targeted by other enemies.