Monster Tamer Combat System

[Red Herring 9]

Hullo.

 

I had a theoretical idea for a monster tamer combat system; it sounded rather interesting in my head, anywho. I would like some feedback on the concept, to those willing to lend their input. For the unaware, a monster tamer game is centralized around the idea of capturing monsters and training them for battle. Pokemon, Monster Rancher, and Digimon World are prime examples of a monster tamer.

 

The Concept

 

First off, the foundation of this system runs on an active time battle system. Regardless of whether or not the player gives any direct input, both sides will continue to battle one another. Frequency of attack is determined by a party member's or enemy's speed statistic. Think Final Fantasy VI or Final Fantasy IV.

 

Secondly, the player can have up to four members in their battle party. This will consist of the player's tamer character, and up to three of their captured monsters.

 

Now then, onto the actual concept itself. The player can only control one character (initially): their tamer character, who can support and battle alongside his/her monsters. Your monsters will battle their enemies based on a "gambit" system; a prioritized list of actions they will take based on certain conditions. (Think Final Fantasy XII) At first, your monsters will only have a few gambit slots to work with and configure, because they're stupid/disobedient. However, as you continue to use them in battle, you will unlock more and more gambit slots until you can create a complex list of actions for any situation. The number of gambit slots that can be unlocked varies by monster, and are also subtly affected by certain statistics.

 

Lastly, the player's tamer character can take direct command over any of their monsters, and control their actions/attacks in battle. However, the tamer can only control one monster at a time (This may upgrade to two once the tamer has gained enough experience as a tamer). Furthermore, while a tamer is directing a monster, they are unable to attack or take any actions of their own. Releasing control of their monster will set their action bar back to 0, as well as the formerly controlled monster's. This will also give a bonus to "synergy", which helps to speed up gambit unlocks, and allows the tamer to unlock "combination" attacks/abilities with their monsters.

 

 

 

That's pretty much the basis of it. Does anyone have any thoughts, opinions, comments, feedback, criticism, etc? If so, do tell.

 

 

[phoenixrossyNRG 3]

So basically, it's a traditional fantasy RPG but in the place of characters, you have monsters. With autobattle. ?

 

Personally, I'd rather be able to control my whole party from the off, but that's just me. By way of comparison, I personally hated the largely-automated system in FFXIII. I don't see how automating anything in a game has a positive effect on the gameplay.

 

Aside from that, it seems like a solid concept. Do you have the scripting ability to pull it off?

[HumanNinja 144]

How exactly do you plan on doing this 'gambit' system?

 

You want to be able to alter your characters list of commands from within the game? It sounds like it will require some major scripting.

 

So basically, it's a traditional fantasy RPG but in the place of characters, you have monsters. With autobattle. ?

 

Yeah, I don't get this part either.

[Nekotori 739]

Automating battles is really good if the whole combat is action based like Kingdom Hearts, imagine playing Kingdom Hearts and you need to control all three of the active members all of the same time. Well since your monster taming system is an ATB one, I dont see anything bad for mimicing FF12 gambit system since FF12 is also an ATB based game. It kinda emits an effect of putting the player in the shoes of the MC but not splitting the players perspective to multiple party members. It would be nice if the player has those complex commands so playing as the MC won't get too boring. Switching to one monster at a time should be kept as a center of the system, controlling gwo would kinda ruin the system for me since you only have 3 active monsters, instead of having 2 monsters to control, just make a bonus on the controlled monster like bonus stats will be granted to the controlled monster for a few turns will be nice.

 

Why I don't like controling 2 monsters?

well the party consists of a tamer and 3 monsters, if you can control 2 late game then I see no point why you can't control 3? You can somewhat call it Monster Synch where in the tamer and a monster unites in terms of mind thus enabling the player to direct the actions of the synched monster. ^~^

 

Everything I said above is just my honest opinion ^~^ Will be waiting for some results and if all goes well, a cool demo would be nice. Will surely play

[Anderson88 26]

Depending on how fast-paced your game is, it may or may not be a good idea to automate battlers. Traditional ATB combat systems (which is what I'm seeing when you describe your project) don't usually have auto-battles (unless it's an option to be enabled) because they're usually more strategic/turn-based as opposed to action-oriented. Games like the "Tales of" series allow you to control one character and set a strategy for your allies to follow, because of its fast-paced combat.

 

So basically what I mean is that if you want strategic combat, there's no point in having auto-battlers... unless you balanced the AI extremely well. Honestly, in most games where there are auto-battlers, it's mostly the player fighting against the AI to make sure they don't screw up every fight by making the wrong decisions.

And if you wanted fast action combat, I think you should avoid using a turn-based system.

 

Also I'm getting a sort of Ni No Kuni vibe from this, which could be interesting.