[b]Making turn based combat fun [/b] I love turn based combat. Some of my first games were Ultima, Phantasie, Final Fantasy 6, even dungeon crawlers like wizardry. I can't get enough of the tacical nature, thinking of what to use in each turn. However, it can get a bit stale, especially once encounters become too easy. So I thought I would post about how I handle combat in my game. It will cover some general thought behind combat and skills and I'll get more in depth on those in future topics. This is a bit of a text bomb so if you can't be bothered reading the details, here is the tldr first: Routine, easy combat bad, challenging and varied combat good. Lack of enemy variety boring, variety of enemies and enemy abilities good. Forcing players to play a certain way bad, giving players tools to play the way they want good. I am trying to do as much good and as little bad as possible. [b] Combat difficulty[/b] A lot of the time in turn based games we tend to just go for whatever ability does the most damage and spam the hell out of that or even worse, spend time waiting for cooldowns on top abilities while doing nothing in between. What I loved about the games mentioned above was that they were hard as hell, sometimes incredibly so. It could be frustrating but overcoming some of those battles was satisfying. I think one of the weaknesses of modern RPGs is everything is too easy, or even worse there are adjustable difficulty levels and trying to reward players for overcoming challenges isn't a core concept. In Lair of the Leviathan combat is difficult and punishing. Not to the point some enemies are impossible (unless you are very underlevelled) but recovery between battles is limited, it's a battle of attrition in many ways. You need to carefully manage your parties health so every wound you take is important. Even that band of small goblins with enough hits can wear down your party slowly. Some enemies may seem impossible and you will find a weakness and suddenly you have a chance. I don't mean a binary final fantasy style of weakness, it is more along the line of mechanics. That enemy that seems impossible to hit? Hit him with evasion debuffs, raise your own evasion. That other enemy with what seems like a impossibly massive amount of health but no armour or evasion? Go to town with your high damage low accuracy abilities and damage over time. I don't want to make players quit, you can always come back to encounters later with better gear and levels and try again but having difficult encounters that players can really think about and challenge themselves with I think is a core part of older RPGs and I want to bring it back. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44820455/a9883fe14c7efca7bfefddd74818708cf20a2092.gif[/img] [b] Providing tools rather than just damage[/b] Every enemy has strengths and weaknesses. You might not need to take advantage of them but I think have a wide variety of builds and abilities that do more than just damage makes combat far more interesting. That enemy with high armour, you can either use armour piercing characters for the battle like the Rogue, or characters that reduce armour through debuffs like the Dwarf. Or another example is the witches' Melt the Flesh ability which does moderate damage but can continuously wear down enemies with low fortitude. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44820455/29bff88c5f1921ed98e1d4b4c65125c3f6706ec1.gif[/img] There are more complicated examples, but the core concept is having players look at the battle and choosing each turn what is the best option, not just trying to do big damage. [b]Enemy design[/b] Another core part of the game is a high level of enemy variety. There will be a lot of different enemy types as well as elite and boss type enemies. The more advanced enemies have a variety of attacks so just spamming high damage skills isn't always the best option. I remember playing older games and never knowing what was coming up next, thinking 'what the heck is that thing??' being surprised at new enemy abilities and having to quickly adapt. That's what I am trying to achieve. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44820455/671a99a094086015585a0f1421f85f0dac373671.gif[/img] [b] Customisation[/b] The final aspect of combat that I think is important is letting players customise abilities and find new ways to make it fun. I don't want to just pigeon hole everyone into playing the same way. With the weapon system you can choose to focus on particular playstyles for each character. I will post at a future date on how the weapons and skill systems work but there is a lot of flexibility. I want to provide the tools for players to decide how they want to do things and work out solutions in their own way. Want to make your Dwarf into a frontline beast and at the cost of survivability? You can do that. Or want to make your Champion lose a lot of his offensive power in favour of being a buffing machine? You can do that too. [b] I want to hear from you [/b] I'd love to hear comments from you on what you like and dislike about turn based combat. Is there anything that you feel is missing from modern games? Or something that you wish more developers would focus on? Or even things that stop you playing turn based games at all? I'm really interested in hearing what people think. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44820455/eb3fa2e8aba1d6269cd0da3ff42366e1eb9977fb.gif[/img]