This is slightly project-specific, but I've been going in circles about this idea for quite a while now that I'd really help to see some outside opinions.
The base question is, what do I do with the Lazy Backup? (don't run, I swear I have a point!)
1. Nothing, they sit out the battles, twiddle their thumbs and disperse if the main party has fallen - willing suspense of disbelief or not, don't like this at all
2. FFX style - everyone travels together, party members can be switched during battle - really like this system
So far this is just beating the dead horse again, but due to a conondrum I faced in my project I had to come up with a third option.
See, my game's number of playable characters of 4 and max. battle party size of 3 would mean my Lazy Backup is just a single person. In FFX's case it's easy to justify why the other 4 characters can't fit into the battle screen, but with just one...
So, to give that backup a purpose in battle:
3. Everyone travels together, party members can be switched during battle AND the backup can do one or more of the following:
- provides a party-wide sustained buff or enemy-party-wide debuff (this was the original idea)
- regenerates HP (more quickly) / can be revived if dead or revives on its own in x amount of turns
- can't be targeted (maybe only by AoEs?)
- lets your party bail out if defeated in combat (even from boss fights)
And my counter-arguments as I keep trying to figure out if this system is viable or not to implement:
1. Is a party-wide buff really enough to "lose" one character from the field? Does adding more "perks" to being in the "back row" makes it too OP?
2. Can't make it arbitrary in all situations, thus no in-game handwaving / justification / explanation (in case of no one above the headcount limit, I wouldn't want to bump someone to the sidelines - for example, the reason I have 4 characters is because I plan to split them into teams of 2 for some missions; in those cases, I can't have one person play backup only)
3. (project specific) Is this idea too convoluted / awkward, just to avoid using 4-person parties? (I really, really like the 3-person battle dynamic)
Are there any other games that use a similar mechanic? (or any other games with the same 4PCs/3 battlers setup, for that matter?)
If anyone is up to sharing ideas, I'd be really grateful :) (sorry of any wording is awkward, english-as-second-language here)
Giving the Lazy Backup a purpose in battle
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This sounds interesting! You could go a bit like FF3 for the DS, where you had guest characters who did special actions in battle. It'd be cool, and offer for some extra tactics in-battle!
I really like all the options on 3. Instead of party-wide buffs and debuffs, you could have them repeat specific actions or skills randomly, although the debuffs certainly are cool too.
Aditionally, there could be party-wide skills and passive abilities that activate based only on the reserve character, such as extra gold, extra EXP, item scavenging during the battle, etc. things like that. And the run rate could be based on his/her agility! there are plenty of ways to make this interesting. :D
With 1 attacker, 1 healer, 1 tank and 1 utility/ranged, their passive abilities could be as follows:
attacker - executes a follow-up attack at an enemy every turn, after an attack by an ally. / increases ATK. (either)
healer - recovers x Hp per turn to the party / increases RES and healing affinity.
tank - One enemy physical attack per turn will do half damage. / increases DEF of the party.
utility - Arrows rain on the enemies every turn. Needs Arrow items to work, damage is low. / Increases Evasion and Hit%
these could scale with the reserve characters' TP. Additionally, they could learn more passive skills as the game progresses, and they'd have to pick 1 to be equipped. This could be potentially very interesting and innovative! IT'd require a lot of scripting, though. -
If you have a rouge like character...could be a class mechanic to keep swapping with the reserve character for a sneak attack.
have an event check if the rouge is in group at start of turn...if they aren't it sets a switch that gives the rouge character the skill "Sneak Attack" which does heavy damage.
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Could be strategic to leave the healer in reserve until they are needed as long as there isn't a game over for having 3 characters K.O. so they can be swapped in to heal, then swap out...
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If tank is in reserve and a character with critical HP is about to be attacked, the tank swaps places with them automatically like another form of Cover -
I always liked how back-ups worked in the Mana Khemia games and Atelier Escha & Logy. People in reserve quickly heal HP and MP, and you can have them jump in at any time by having them follow up with an attack or take someone's place to defend them. You can even chain multiple characters together and end things with a powerful attack.
Four is a bit of an odd number for a 3-man team, though. If it was me I would either make the party have 4 people, or add a fifth person. Ni no Kuni had a 4-person team with 3 in battle but I just kept the new guy on the bench the whole time (although part of that was because the only character he could really replace was the main character, who cannot be removed, and you needed the other two characters to steal and tame monsters). -
It really depends on what you see the Lazy Backup party member is doing, exactly, while the others are fighting.
If the Lazy Backup is basically hiding, since s/he's never attacked, I really can't see the Backup doing anything that exposes him/her to attack. So it is possible that character quietly performs certain types of buffs, based on the character class. I also like the idea of the character maybe adding something special. A Rogue might double gold dropped even as a Lazy Backup, because s/he rummages through the dead enemy's belongings...
Maybe some character classes even guarantee the party will escape from any battle, or that if all party members fall, the Lazy Backup drags them to safety (so they are all restored to 1 HP) except in boss battles.
A Sage might boost the XP gained by the party by some amount, a Mage might passively boost the MAT of all characters. A bow+arrow using character might, sometimes, take a random shot at an enemy. A Healer or Paladin might provide some type of defensive boost, and so on. -
Wow, I love these ideas :)This sounds interesting! You could go a bit like FF3 for the DS, where you had guest characters who did special actions in battle. It'd be cool, and offer for some extra tactics in-battle!
I really like all the options on 3. Instead of party-wide buffs and debuffs, you could have them repeat specific actions or skills randomly, although the debuffs certainly are cool too.
Aditionally, there could be party-wide skills and passive abilities that activate based only on the reserve character, such as extra gold, extra EXP, item scavenging during the battle, etc. things like that. And the run rate could be based on his/her agility! there are plenty of ways to make this interesting. :D
With 1 attacker, 1 healer, 1 tank and 1 utility/ranged, their passive abilities could be as follows:
attacker - executes a follow-up attack at an enemy every turn, after an attack by an ally. / increases ATK. (either)
healer - recovers x Hp per turn to the party / increases RES and healing affinity.
tank - One enemy physical attack per turn will do half damage. / increases DEF of the party.
utility - Arrows rain on the enemies every turn. Needs Arrow items to work, damage is low. / Increases Evasion and Hit%
these could scale with the reserve characters' TP. Additionally, they could learn more passive skills as the game progresses, and they'd have to pick 1 to be equipped. This could be potentially very interesting and innovative! IT'd require a lot of scripting, though.
- guest character - this is definitely a good idea to spice up the gameplay! Could even work in some events where the party protects a back-row/reserve character during battle while they do their thing. And best of all, they can contribute without constantly keeping an eye on their health (Banon, I'm looking at you)
- party-wide skills / after battle bonuses - I have the barebones of a Xenogears/Xenosaga type of battle system into which could integrate nicely (it exists partly in Xenosaga as the always rotating round buff, but this way it would actually make more senseif it would depend on a party member)
- have to be careful making the reserve deal actual damage - don't want the front row turtling down and let the back row do all the work
- scripting is no problem, I'm actually comfortable doing it (Ruby is not my main language, but I've done programming before)
I'll have to check out those two games, I didn't hear about them previously. It sounds similar to what I'd like to achieve. The chaining attacks / comboing also seems interesting.I always liked how back-ups worked in the Mana Khemia games and Atelier Escha & Logy. People in reserve quickly heal HP and MP, and you can have them jump in at any time by having them follow up with an attack or take someone's place to defend them. You can even chain multiple characters together and end things with a powerful attack.
Four is a bit of an odd number for a 3-man team, though. If it was me I would either make the party have 4 people, or add a fifth person. Ni no Kuni had a 4-person team with 3 in battle but I just kept the new guy on the bench the whole time (although part of that was because the only character he could really replace was the main character, who cannot be removed, and you needed the other two characters to steal and tame monsters).
I'm happy you commented on the party setup. I agree it's odd, that's why it's giving me so much headache :(
To be honest, my 4 party members are just 2 mains and 2 supports (who are mainly elevated to PC status so I could have my split parties, so, even though they are distinct characters on their own they are still complementing the mains).
However, the battle system is modeled after Xenogears/Xenosaga, where you use 3 keys to input different combos. Doing that for 4 characters in each battle, especially in an ATB, might be a little bit overwhelming and could cause players to go "eff it" and just spam one type of attack. And as a personal preference, I'm really fond of 3 battlers. So yeah, I'm still debating the "4 battlers" vs "3 battlers, relegate one to backup" route.
Strange that you mention Ni no Kuni, I'm slowly making my way through the game (just got Mornstar, but the constant handholding frustrates me in the long run), and it's really strange they're going to introduce another player character at this point. I mean, the MC-tamer-thief setup is perfect, they are already way into their adventure, so I also doubt I'll use the latecomer either.
The idea is that I want all 4 PCs in the battle, but I want only 3 to be controllable (personal preference and to avoid overwhelming the player in the battle system), so one of them would go for a support role - help his/her allies even if wounded and recovering, or to bail them out if something goes south (so you don't punch yourself in the face if you forgot to save but the enemy wiped you), anything to make them useful instead of just sitting on the sidelines.It really depends on what you see the Lazy Backup party member is doing, exactly, while the others are fighting.
If the Lazy Backup is basically hiding, since s/he's never attacked, I really can't see the Backup doing anything that exposes him/her to attack. So it is possible that character quietly performs certain types of buffs, based on the character class. I also like the idea of the character maybe adding something special. A Rogue might double gold dropped even as a Lazy Backup, because s/he rummages through the dead enemy's belongings...
Maybe some character classes even guarantee the party will escape from any battle, or that if all party members fall, the Lazy Backup drags them to safety (so they are all restored to 1 HP) except in boss battles.
A Sage might boost the XP gained by the party by some amount, a Mage might passively boost the MAT of all characters. A bow+arrow using character might, sometimes, take a random shot at an enemy. A Healer or Paladin might provide some type of defensive boost, and so on.
Could be either that they are immune to damage while in reserve, or maybe they are not targetable by melee (as the front row protects him/her), but ranged and area effects could still harm them.
I love the after battle bonuses too (+XP or +money), like JosephSeraph's idea.
Thank you all for the wonderful comments, it's lovely to bounce ideas off other people :)
It gives me confidence that this idea can be viable and doable, and not just crazy talk. -
Or You could do what Breath of Fire 4 did, 3 people in the front for battle and 3 at the back being on standby.
- If a PC dies in battle one of the members at the back will swap the KO'd member
- members at the back have a chance to use a hidden ability that can either damage enemies or support allies
- In this fashion you are also able to heal allies at the back row with your allies in the front.
- Members at the back row recover a small % of MP every turn
- enemies can only attack the members in the front
- Game ends when all members die, not just the front row (Death in FF10 was ed) -
A game that gave button input commands to characters and featured 4 characters was Valkyrie Profile!
It was totally turn based, though. I think what you are doing is probably very different, but very interesting nonetheless!
And yeah! 3-people parties rock! They are much more tense in a way, because if a single character dies you lose 33% of the party, as opposed to 25% in 4-character ones. -
with a group of 6+ characters you could encourage frequent party member swapping by having certain forced actions occur when a party member "enters the battlefield" (tip of the hat to Magic the Gathering)
- Blind all foes for a turn when the rouge enters the battlefield (Sneak Attack does 3x damage to blinded foes?)
- All allies get Regen state when the priest enters the battlefield
- All allies take half damage for 1 turn when the paladin enters the battlefield
- Warrior gets a TGR bonus for X turns when he enters the battlefield
- All allies get an attack bonus when the Bard enters the battlefield.
- Summon a random pet when the Ranger enters the battlefield. (Tank Pet, attack pet, buffer pet?)
- Mage gains X MP when they enter the battlefield
Of course the standard party changing scripts out there will not be of much use and would need to adopt something similar to FFX's party member swap where it was instant and didn't consume a turn.
I did this in a new project using for test reasons and it was pretty fun. enter the battlefield effects could only happen every 3 turns per character for balancing reasons. (All events and yanfly's instant cast, large party, and cool down scripts) but my battle system in my current project doesn't flow with such a system unfortunately...maybe a future project.
Hope someone else can make use of it tho -
I could see a ranged combat fighter attacking from the back row although it would be reduced damage (5-10% of attack but all enemies) and accuracy, not every turn either.
A mage could deflect/reflect/absorb as mp an incoming spell.
A tank could randomly block/take/counter a physical attack.
A priest/healer could give a random party-wide buff that they already know but lowered efficacy and only 1 per battle.
A thief might get extra items/gold to drop or maybe even a unique item they can only get from being in the back. -
Actually, this reminds me of the support character for SMT: Persona 4 that lets you see enemy stats. There's another game stuck on the tip of my brain that had a support characters do periodic attacks or heals. Another that's a turn based SRPG where the protagonist can't actually fight but levels up and uses magic to summon/command magical minions from a reserve list of characters, cast supporting spells, synthesize items or perform alchemy. If you did something like that you could always add some more resource values for the player to manage then spend the points on meta-level commands to affect the overall situation. Maybe even implement something similar to the orders system from Valkyria Chronicles. You don't even need the "lazy" character to vary, it could be one character and possibly even the leader.