I'm sure this might be a thoroughly analyzed topic but I just can't seem to find a word to search for it so...
What are your opinions on how it differs between having 3 and 4(or even different numbers) party members in a battle in terms of game design and balance(mostly in all aspects)?
I personally like a 3 battle members party in an aesthetic sense, but as I see and playing games, I can't shake the feeling that 4 battle members can be better balanced while 3 battle members seems to be better for a more abstract battle or game with more customization. And that's just my feelings, I still can't think of a reason for it, so maybe you guys can help me better at this. And I wanna hear some opinions about it too.
What do you guys think are the factors for the number of your max battle members? And what are your opinions about all of it?
designing for 3 and 4 battle party?
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I had 4 active party members in an older game I made, but I always got stuck with that feeling it was a bit too much. When I play an RPG, I prefer 3 party members, because it's easier to plan for because of smaller size, but still provides enough options to cover the essentials. In the case of standard RPG Maker combat, it also helps make combat flow a bit faster, because you have 1 less party member to pick a command for and watch their animation play out than what you'd have with 4 characters.
With 3 characters, each character and their actions also feel more important, because if one goes down, they're harder to replace. Whereas with 4 characters, it's easier to make up for the loss of one guy. -
length of each battle turn, mainly.
limitations to put in place whenever the party characters can't interact with the leader for whatever reason, in second place.
with that second one I mean whenever the player can use skills or items onto the party characters without them being physically within reach of the main character, having to put validations for that, or outright disabling the access to the items or skills window outside of battle.
..........which is the problem I'm addressing *right now* :frown:
if it wouldn't be physically possible to use that item or skill as intended, then it shouldn't be allowed at all, and that could affect the gameplay (and the story in various levels)
the more characters there are, the more parallel plot lines to consider, and the more breaches to suspension of disbelief. -
Based on my thought, the suitable battle system for each total of active party battle members is
1: Action Battle System / One that required reflex
2: Can be action with switchable mechanic / Active Time Battle
3: Standard turn based / Card Turn Battle / Free Turn Battle
4: Standard turn based / Card Turn Battle / Free Turn Battle
5+: Tactical
Which is why I believe 3-4 active party battle members you think is the sweet spot. The difference between 3 and 4 is kinda huge though. You have an extra input to one more character, which means more damage you can deal per turn, also more time to finish a turn. And you gotta think why you need an extra character in the first place.
My complete game has 3 party members, and I think it's balance enough. Because some essential skills can be spread through those 3 party members. My game sequel added one more party member, means it's 4 party now. It was kinda hard to fit because of a duplicated role. Like skill X that does something already exist in a certain party member, so why I put this on another party member? Because I'm aiming for an uniqueness of each character, there shouldn't be a duplicated role. I had to rework all of the characters skill once, so at least for now it's solved.
I tried ATB (with interruption mechanic, you can see it on my RSW submission on my signature) for 3 active party battle members, and I thought it barely fit, and was too hectic. The lesser party member like 2 active party battle member might be more suitable than 3 or more. -
Personally, I've never found "balancing" to be very difficult unless I was working with large numbers of stats and/or multiplicative/division formulas. They're so imprecise that I have issues.
But, really, if you're using 3 party members instead of 4, all you really need to do is up the damage output than you would if you had 4 party members. Most players use "the holy trinity" in RPG's. DPS, Healer, Tank. If you give them four members instead of 3, most players just slot a second DPS into their party. Or, a gimmick member who is entertaining.
Balancing in either method just boils down to, "how many hits do you want enemies to die in?" and "how many hits do I want a party member to die in?". Then, you just adjust combat formulas and stats as necessary to achieve the goal.
Unfortunately, unless you're creating a dynamic and interesting combat system, it doesn't really make a difference if you have two party members, three party members, four members, five, or even six. A dynamic combat system will make a huge difference to how many party members an RPG has, as you'll be balancing many combat systems and situations around how many party members you have. But, if you were to compare Final Fantasy 6 to Chrono Trigger... there's fundamentally no difference in the combat despite one system using 1 less party member. It still boils down to "The Holy Trinity" and "mashing attack". However, if you have to carefully balance when you heal, when you do damage, when you spend turns defending, or how you deal with frequent enemy gimmicks... Then, that fourth party member can be incredibly useful and even tip the scales.
But, if you're just creating a standard RPG where stats rule the day and what you do in combat beyond "heal when injured" and "mash attack or strongest skills" isn't that important... Then, the amount of party members really isn't that important as long as you've got at least 1 healer and 1 person to do damage. But, you could realistically have the same person healing as doing the damage, especially when all that matters is the numbers. A number of RPGs do this, even older ones like Fallout 1 (it has companions, but you don't need to pick up a single one to beat the game).
But, that's just my two cents on the subject. -
3 is good for making the player choice of party makeup feel more important.
like do you chose to have a tank+healer+melee tank+healer+caster
do you ditch the tank and go for a more power house team or do you make your team 3 redmages(decent but not great at melee/magic/healing)
but to me it really comes down to "how many options are there?"
if you have over 20 classes to choose from i'd prefer 4 person party
mainly so you can experience more classes at once and get a feel for the ones you like faster
but if you only have like 6 classes the smaller party size and more intense feeling choice is definitely the way to go.
and i just had a sudden FF1 flashback to the playthough i did only using 2 characters n left the other 2 dead at lv1 lol -
Something to greatly consider is the action economy in relation to actor deaths. If for example you only had 2 actors in battle, losing just one might as well be game over since you would have to spend your entire turn 'trying' to revive them.
When someone 'dies' in battle you don't just lose that actor's action but the revival action of a second actor as well. Because of this a single death can feel very punishing with 3 or less actors but have little recourse when dealing with actor parties of 5+. -
I think it depends on the complexity of your battle system and how many roles are needed. If you're designing a basic combat system, where people just attack bad guys, heal injuries, and maybe apply buffs from time to time like in FF7, 3 is enough. But what if you've got several buffs and your current fight depends on all of them? What if you need someone to tank physical attacks, someone to tank magical attacks, someone to be a dedicated healer, someone to provide an elemental defense buff, someone to refresh MP, and someone to deal damage? You better hope there's some character ability overlap, because that's 6 important roles that you'll need to squash into 4 character slots.
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I agree with most of the posters in this topic about how the design is not really that much different for 3-member vs. 4-member battle parties (the differences tend to be bigger when you drop below 3, or leap above 5).
As far as a few of the differences there are if you're having a hard time deciding between 3 vs. 4 members:
- Obviously, turns are considerably quicker with 3 members than 4, so 3 members tends to be better if you're planning on most battles taking more than three turns and there are a reasonably high number of battles in your game.
- If there are any roles that feel "essential" (such as the healer), this will leave fewer chances for the player to play around with non-essential roles. @Tai_MT explained this in depth, but basically, if you have more than one role that feels essential in battle, the 4-member composition will offer a lot more room for players to slot their favorite character in just because they like the character.
- It's worth nothing that the fewer characters you have, the more valuable each action is. This means that taking a turn to defend, heal, use an item, set up a combo with another character, etc., is more "costly" in a 3-member setup than a 4-member one. Good game designs can be built around making these non-damage actions costly, and good game designs can also be built around making them feel more free, but it's worth thinking about how you want it to feel as the designer when you're making the decision on how many members to include.