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Random Battles

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An idea I've been playing around with in my mind and thinking about implementing;

I think by and large that boss encounters and other special events are what makes Final Fantasy games really shine and lots of rom hacks prove this. Incidentally Return of the Dark Sorcerer does this incredibly well, I find, but it got me thinking about the trash mobs in random encounters, their main purpose and how I can alter them in general in interesting ways to keep myself and potential others who might play my rom hack interested in the random encounters as well.
Mainly, they're used to drain your characters or HP, MP, resources and sometimes throw something nice your way as well as give you a sense of progression as you level up and defeat them easier only to be slapped down by the next big-bad to put you in your place. But I was wondering how well people would respond to, if, they served a purpose of having unique or unusual weaknesses that could be exploited as a subtle hint as to what the upcoming Boss might be vulnerable to as well. For example; A dungeon has more single enemy encounters but they're all vulnerable to the Imp spell with the weakest group being Imps or impish. Then the boss fight has support minions or is himself susceptible to Imp to even the playing field whereas without would prove far more daunting whereas I think most people accept that Bosses are immune to most things (except when they aren't) and generally overlook even trying.
The question here would be; Does that seem like something people would pay attention to or would it just seem frustrating and random? Or on the other hand be too obvious and just adds more work load with no extra pay off?

Then there's just a few enemy types I think would be interesting;
Very fast enemies with very low damage that get frequent attacks.
Example: they hit you 5 times and do 50 damage each and it's annoying seeing the enemy get so many turns you want to take them out first.
But then sometimes it's paired with a slow guy who does twice the damage in the same length of time with one attack.
Or like 6 of them that do like 5~15 damage but combined pull out 1000 damage throughout the fight. They aren't very threatening to your parties survival but definitely drain your resources undoing that damage.

How has everyone else handled modifying the random encounter enemies?
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I moved your thread in the appropriate sub-forum. This is more a question rather than a personal project with some progress you have things to show about or want input on.
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  • Odbarc (07-07-2020)

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It is good game design to have enemies telegraph information about the boss as you work your way through the dungeon. It's something I've seen in more modern games, especially multiplayer ones. The idea is to teach the player a new mechanic before that mechanic becomes a win-or-lose consideration.

That said, in the games I did see this technique applied, no one noticed/cared that the design was there. In other words, it will be appreciated by the people who pay enough attention to see it, but not many players care or want to be bothered.

Although... the people who are hardcore about FF6 do find little subtleties like that... providing they aren't running from all the fights. It's a toss-up; I'd say do it if you like monster scripting or you need the practice.

Personally, most of the random monsters in my hack don't even have scripts, they just pick an attack from their control list (thank you Hatzen!). Makes 'em a little more unpredictable, but doesn't have the benefit of informing the player about the next boss as you described.
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(07-07-2020, 06:08 PM)madsiur Wrote: I moved your thread in the appropriate sub-forum. This is more a question rather than a personal project with some progress you have things to show about or want input on.

Great. I generally get that kind of thing wrong.

(07-07-2020, 06:33 PM)C-Dude Wrote: Personally, most of the random monsters in my hack don't even have scripts, they just pick an attack from their control list (thank you Hatzen!).  Makes 'em a little more unpredictable, but doesn't have the benefit of informing the player about the next boss as you described.

Yeah, I think a lot of my mobs won't have or need much of a script either. A lot of "a, b, c" simplicity.

I think in ROTDS one of the bosses was poisoned at the start of battle and when I first fought him I assumed it was Regen. I died and when I fought him again I tried antidote and it stopped his healing. Huzzah. It was great and the boss turned out to be memorable and not just a dangerous sponge I just needed to hit more.

Mostly I'm just wondering if it's worth the time to redo all (or lots) of mobs so that they can feel more interesting too, and interesting with a purpose, or if no one really likes that sort of thing and makes the easy parts too complicated.
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