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How would you improve TB?

halfdan

Barely Literate
Joined
Jun 10, 2020
Messages
1
I was playing Pathfinder Kingmaker lastly and Dos2 and Battle Brothers and recognized how much more i like TB over Realtime.

I'm also a big fan of Kingdom Come Deliverance. This started a thinking process in myself and started the Question:

How could you build a such interesting System like Dos 2 ( minus the annoying Armor System) with a similar versatile and interesting concept - but without magic. Means, litterally Kingdome Come but with a party in Turnbased Combat. How could someone stage this?

Ideas i had:

  • verticality and Terrain is something
  • a ressource like stamina you have to manage while fighting (eg if your tired you wan't be really proficent)
  • hitting bodyparts -> depending on what you wear differnt bodyparts are nearly impossible to penetrate/harm. Like you can't someone in Platearmor stab with a Sword into the Chest. This looks different with the spike of a Warhammer
  • skills that are like combos..example player takes a stab, stab, slash combo..and the opponent something like slash, slash, pommelhit and then you ahve something like a scissors, stone paper. But i thin this is not a good concept. I would really like to make the whole system more skillbased than Gear.
 

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,548
Have you played Dungeon Rats? I think the game is very solid.

Actually different weapon types, some consumables and carefully crafted encounters generally against some similar group of characters as yours, mostly, + some extra complexity via crafting choices, different weapon attacks ... No not-magic, not-mp or whatever ninja skill.

Sure it's a bit the opposite of DOS (which I like too for other reasons), it's very PnP-ish and gets bonus style points in my book for that, the better PnP feel the better RPG, but that also perfectly fits the grimdark, very low fantasy tone you're talking about, the fights feel brutal and at the scale of a bunch of regular guys fighting each other, blood loss is really something and the blows feel heavy.
 

The Avatar

Pseudodragon Studios
Developer
Joined
Jan 15, 2016
Messages
336
Location
The United States of America
From a design standpoint, tactical variety is the most important part of a turn-based game. The concept of magic is really just a stylistic thing- a tag or a label assigned to the underlying mechanical effect. In D:OS, you can cast a healing spell, or use first aid from the warrior branch. One is magical, the other is not- but they both accomplish the same thing. If you want to design a game without magic, just make some low-key abilities, and don't call them magic. What you don't want to do is have a simple system where you just do the same thing each turn( auto attack). That's just boring.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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33,050
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KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
- stamina, as you already mentioned, can work well to make every action count; Battle Brothers is a good example where stamina management is an important part of the game
- height differences, positioning, flanking etc
- different weapon types having different strengths and weaknesses, like swords being very good against unarmored flesh but sucking against armor, while warhammers are the best for armor penetration but have lower overall damage, etc
- different weapon ranges: dagger is only for up close, swords are medium range, polearms are long range etc
- locational armor and damage on each limb; go for full protection on your whole body but that comes with additional weight which increases your stamina consumption, or leave your non-vital limbs with lighter armor which leaves them easier to hit
 

J1M

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
14,616
Phase-based combat, where you and the enemy choose actions and then they are resolved simultaneously, is what I would consider an unsolved turn-based problem.

Games have attempted it, but I don't think anyone has solved it.
 

Van-d-all

Erudite
Joined
Jan 18, 2017
Messages
1,557
Location
Standin' pretty. In this dust that was a city.
Phase-based combat, where you and the enemy choose actions and then they are resolved simultaneously, is what I would consider an unsolved turn-based problem.

Games have attempted it, but I don't think anyone has solved it.
This could work pretty well with parry and weapon delays. If both sides declared a set of attacks they are going for, and then the execution phase would resolve them while succeeding or failing to defend would affect consecutive actions. Fairly lifelike.

As others mentioned, situational modifiers like positioning and multi stat (damage/penetration etc.) weapons are an obvious choice.
 

InD_ImaginE

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 23, 2015
Messages
5,365
Pathfinder: Wrath
Have the AI be actually competent enough to tango with the player instead of just stacking number (XCOM likes) or something that plainly doesn't work like Pathfinder Kingmaker AI. Have the AI understand the map objective instead of being just a stats stcik that stand between point A and B and will be baited to attack when the player gets in aggro range. Have the AI understand how to optimize its movement to avoid getting attacked if/when they are moving to the player. If the player can deduce "this enemy has this movement range + attack range" then so should the AI use the same information against the player.

Time limit: make turns have time limit for players to decide something like in chess. If the AI is good enough it might be OK without this.

Global turn limit. Once again this is an AI problem. If they are competent enough then you don't need this. But XCOM likes be it old or new, while stacking number against you always have this dumb AI which can be baited one by one. A lot of TB games are also guilty of this in fact. Global turn limit force the player to do something instead of AI aggro baiting.
 

Stormcrowfleet

Aeon & Star Interactive
Developer
Joined
Sep 23, 2009
Messages
1,020
Phase-based combat, where you and the enemy choose actions and then they are resolved simultaneously, is what I would consider an unsolved turn-based problem.

Games have attempted it, but I don't think anyone has solved it.
My favorte of this kind, although not an RPG, is Breach & Clear. Combat felt really good and fluid.
 

Nathaniel3W

Rockwell Studios
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Developer
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Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming!
The thing about TB is that most infections are actually benign. If I were to improve on it, I would make it much more likely to turn into an "active" infection.
 

DraQ

Arcane
Joined
Oct 24, 2007
Messages
32,828
Location
Chrząszczyżewoszyce, powiat Łękołody
  • Phase-based/simultaneous TB - split turns into planning and execution phase. Helps minimize timing artifacts. Making execution phase truly simultaneous would solve problems with TB scaling poorly to very large fights.
  • Microturns - TB's biggest problem, by far, is that it puts lower bound on reaction times and by default this lower bound is pretty high, meaning very lethal things can happen without player/enemy being able to react. Attempts at mitigation (nerfs and bloat) tend to degrade the gameplay further. Shortening turn length is an obvious solution, but the UI considerations become significant problem when it comes to avoiding combat becoming too slow.
  • Multi-turn actions - see above.
  • Departing from fixed duration turns, combat as series of interrupts and reactions. Needs some thought put into triggering the interrupts, normal turns as a backup for when nothing interesting happens.
Ideas i had:

  • verticality and Terrain is something
  • a ressource like stamina you have to manage while fighting (eg if your tired you wan't be really proficent)
  • hitting bodyparts -> depending on what you wear differnt bodyparts are nearly impossible to penetrate/harm. Like you can't someone in Platearmor stab with a Sword into the Chest. This looks different with the spike of a Warhammer
Those are generic improvement. They are good regardless of the combat system or even genre.
  • skills that are like combos..example player takes a stab, stab, slash combo..and the opponent something like slash, slash, pommelhit and then you ahve something like a scissors, stone paper. But i thin this is not a good concept. I would really like to make the whole system more skillbased than Gear.
This is a pretty neat idea. I disagree about it being a bad concept - it goes some way towards extending effective time needed to execute particularly devastating actions AND makes multiturn actions more interactive. It can also be combined with a state-machine-like status effect system.
 

urmom

Learned
Joined
May 28, 2020
Messages
308
You guys are talking about Vargrant Story I think. Combos galore.
 

Ninjerk

Arcane
Joined
Jul 10, 2013
Messages
14,323
Have the AI be actually competent enough to tango with the player instead of just stacking number (XCOM likes) or something that plainly doesn't work like Pathfinder Kingmaker AI. Have the AI understand the map objective instead of being just a stats stcik that stand between point A and B and will be baited to attack when the player gets in aggro range. Have the AI understand how to optimize its movement to avoid getting attacked if/when they are moving to the player. If the player can deduce "this enemy has this movement range + attack range" then so should the AI use the same information against the player.

Time limit: make turns have time limit for players to decide something like in chess. If the AI is good enough it might be OK without this.

Global turn limit. Once again this is an AI problem. If they are competent enough then you don't need this. But XCOM likes be it old or new, while stacking number against you always have this dumb AI which can be baited one by one. A lot of TB games are also guilty of this in fact. Global turn limit force the player to do something instead of AI aggro baiting.
Have you ever played the FFT ROM fan patch?
 

InD_ImaginE

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 23, 2015
Messages
5,365
Pathfinder: Wrath
Have the AI be actually competent enough to tango with the player instead of just stacking number (XCOM likes) or something that plainly doesn't work like Pathfinder Kingmaker AI. Have the AI understand the map objective instead of being just a stats stcik that stand between point A and B and will be baited to attack when the player gets in aggro range. Have the AI understand how to optimize its movement to avoid getting attacked if/when they are moving to the player. If the player can deduce "this enemy has this movement range + attack range" then so should the AI use the same information against the player.

Time limit: make turns have time limit for players to decide something like in chess. If the AI is good enough it might be OK without this.

Global turn limit. Once again this is an AI problem. If they are competent enough then you don't need this. But XCOM likes be it old or new, while stacking number against you always have this dumb AI which can be baited one by one. A lot of TB games are also guilty of this in fact. Global turn limit force the player to do something instead of AI aggro baiting.
Have you ever played the FFT ROM fan patch?

I am not aware that there is one. Which one is it?
 

Ninjerk

Arcane
Joined
Jul 10, 2013
Messages
14,323
Have the AI be actually competent enough to tango with the player instead of just stacking number (XCOM likes) or something that plainly doesn't work like Pathfinder Kingmaker AI. Have the AI understand the map objective instead of being just a stats stcik that stand between point A and B and will be baited to attack when the player gets in aggro range. Have the AI understand how to optimize its movement to avoid getting attacked if/when they are moving to the player. If the player can deduce "this enemy has this movement range + attack range" then so should the AI use the same information against the player.

Time limit: make turns have time limit for players to decide something like in chess. If the AI is good enough it might be OK without this.

Global turn limit. Once again this is an AI problem. If they are competent enough then you don't need this. But XCOM likes be it old or new, while stacking number against you always have this dumb AI which can be baited one by one. A lot of TB games are also guilty of this in fact. Global turn limit force the player to do something instead of AI aggro baiting.
Have you ever played the FFT ROM fan patch?

I am not aware that there is one. Which one is it?
So this is just the first result from a Google search of "fft 1.3": http://ngplus.net/InsaneDifficultyA...ndex243a.html?title=Final_Fantasy_Tactics_1.3

But as I recall reading years ago when I found this modification, the AI that was present in FFT was already quite impressive, but was held back by the limitations of the available spells, the way the encounters were crafted, and ofc some of the really overpowered characters provided by the game. I played it very briefly when I found it, but I'd encourage you to find a video LP of the first couple missions so you can see some of the changes (e.g. one of the basic elemental spells in the beginning uses a '+' shape like in the base game, but the lines don't end, i.e. it hits every x and y coordinate on its lines so you have to be VERY careful in how you move or else the enemy AI can one or two shot you with such spells as soon as they can target a square that lines up with your x or y coordinate).
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,050
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Have the AI understand the map objective instead of being just a stats stcik that stand between point A and B and will be baited to attack when the player gets in aggro range.

This is a good point. Not an RPG and not turn-based, but Ultimate General: Civil War has objectives on its battle maps which AI and player fight over, so the AI will defend its objectives while trying to take the player's objectives, which leads to interesting and dynamic battles where both sides have goals beyond just "kill the other guys". The AI actually defends strong points and pushes the player at the points where it matters.
 

Mastermind

Cognito Elite Material
Patron
Bethestard
Joined
Apr 15, 2010
Messages
21,144
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Make it a blobber with limited (or ideally, 0) movement (except to swap positions between characters). 1st or 3rd person, doesn't matter. Blobbers with formations = TB orgasm.
 

J1M

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
14,616
Two ideas I once heard around here and kept to my brain ever since:

1. Smaller hexes/squares. So, for example, a normal person occupies a 1x2 or even 2x2, while a ogre would occupy 4x4. This would lead to making weapon range more gradual and useful, so for example, a fist or a dagger has a very different range from a sword or a big spear. It also make different entities with different sizes work better, and could even lead to more interesting maps.

2. Movement-based dodging and fighting. People don't stay still in fights, they move around. The more free movement area around a character, the easier it is to dodge. The reverse is also true, so boxing in a character where he can't move, is a good way to render them unable to dodge and avoid attacks. A fight in the middle of an open field is dodge-bonanza, a fight inside a small closed room lacks maneuver space and so the best way to deal with attacks is parrying or armor.

Those two ideas would fit very well if combined.
I prototyped number 1 years ago. It's nice that you can differentiate daggers and swords with different reach. Should be paired with attacks of opportunity to really see the advantages.
 

Nortar

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Sep 5, 2017
Messages
1,407
Pathfinder: Wrath
1. Smaller hexes/squares. So, for example, a normal person occupies a 1x2 or even 2x2, while a ogre would occupy 4x4.

2. Movement-based dodging and fighting. People don't stay still in fights, they move around.

- The environment needs to matter. For example, games seem to treat ground as always being ground.

So you basically reinvented the D&D 3.0 wheel.

1. Size dependand placement and reach, reach weapons.
2. The 5-foot square is this size is because "people are not standing still", restrictions in tight spaces and when squeezing.
ofqDP57.png

3. Difficult terrain.
 

Ninjerk

Arcane
Joined
Jul 10, 2013
Messages
14,323
I prototyped number 1 years ago. It's nice that you can differentiate daggers and swords with different reach. Should be paired with attacks of opportunity to really see the advantages.
Where is your game?
:fight:
 

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