Interesting article on improving turn-based RPG combat

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Jackolantern
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Joined: Wed Jul 01, 2009 11:00 pm

Interesting article on improving turn-based RPG combat

Post by Jackolantern »

Since turn-based RPG combat is so prevalent in PBBGs, I thought I would share this article. He really seems to have a deep understanding of RPG combat game design and it is turning out to be quite an enjoyable read for me. The only negative for some readers is that he is clearly leaning more towards tactical RPGs such as Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre, and some of his advice, if applied to a standard turn-based RPG would push them closer to being tactical RPGs. But I think there are good take-aways from it.

I personally find straight-forward turn-based JRPG battle systems to be a bit tedious and I usually find combat gets old at about the one-quarter point in most games unless the player is constantly learning new abilities. But that is very difficult from a design perspective to keep up as the game moves forward. Some RPGs have implemented a great deal of the points he puts forward without becoming complete tactical RPGs, such as the Lunar series. Those games are traditional JRPGs, but the combat occurs on a battlefield that takes space and orientation into consideration and it makes the battles much more strategic.

While the article is most definitely written from a single-player RPG perspective, a lot of this could apply directly to PBBGs as well. It may just require some adaptation.
The indelible lord of tl;dr
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