How to make battles STAND OUT!

[zuhane1]

I am a very impatient person. If I download a game where you incessantly bash spacebar until you win a battle, I usually delete it quite fast. Here are some tips for making battles actually enjoyable.

1. RTP has got to go, I know it's common sense but RTP really does make me feel sick.

2. Put in colourful and exotic backgrounds. It makes the battles a lot more epic-feeling.

3. Try experimenting at different angles. Sure, rm2k3 is side-on, but you could have a diagnol battle-system. Or the bad guys in the foreground and you in the background. Swap things around a little.

4. Give enemies there own skills. Don't make a shark punch you, get a bite battle animation, put it in a skill and set the MP cost to 0 and put it so it is effected by ATK. Now it will look like the shark has bitten you. If a shark punched you, wouldn't you be worried about the pollution in the water they were living in?

5. Skills, ailments and attributes. They practically made Final Fantasy what it is today. Make your characters have varied skills with all different effects, make skills inflict ailments like paralyze, berserk, poison, rotting. Make enemies inflict ailments on you too. Have attributes as well, so characters have to choose who to attack in which order. This makes you not be able to just tap spacebar otherwise you will probably lose.

6. Don't have one character, it is really crap. When you have a team of 2-4, you really have to look out for eachothers behinds and makes it much more interesting.

7. Have events and items. The odd storyline battle is good when it has character speech, or maybe you have to knock down a wall so it crumbles on the enemies and kills them all in 1 hit. You get the point.

8. Battle music... really really search around for it, have it custom- made even. You want a funky-***-beat that will never get old. Some song that sounds amazing.

Good luck, feel free to slag me off and completely disagree with everything I just put!  

[Dragonium]

Mostly common sense and personal opinion.

I agree with stuff, but it's nothing that hasn't been said and thought of many times before.

[Dragoon de Sol]

Originally posted by zuhane1
I am a very impatient person. If I download a game where you incessantly bash spacebar until you win a battle, I usually delete it quite fast. Here are some tips for making battles actually enjoyable.

1. RTP has got to go, I know it's common sense but RTP really does make me feel sick.

2. Put in colourful and exotic backgrounds. It makes the battles a lot more epic-feeling.

3. Try experimenting at different angles. Sure, rm2k3 is side-on, but you could have a diagnol battle-system. Or the bad guys in the foreground and you in the background. Swap things around a little.

4. Give enemies there own skills. Don't make a shark punch you, get a bite battle animation, put it in a skill and set the MP cost to 0 and put it so it is effected by ATK. Now it will look like the shark has bitten you. If a shark punched you, wouldn't you be worried about the pollution in the water they were living in?

5. Skills, ailments and attributes. They practically made Final Fantasy what it is today. Make your characters have varied skills with all different effects, make skills inflict ailments like paralyze, berserk, poison, rotting. Make enemies inflict ailments on you too. Have attributes as well, so characters have to choose who to attack in which order. This makes you not be able to just tap spacebar otherwise you will probably lose.

6. Don't have one character, it is really crap. When you have a team of 2-4, you really have to look out for eachothers behinds and makes it much more interesting.

7. Have events and items. The odd storyline battle is good when it has character speech, or maybe you have to knock down a wall so it crumbles on the enemies and kills them all in 1 hit. You get the point.

8. Battle music... really really search around for it, have it custom- made even. You want a funky-***-beat that will never get old. Some song that sounds amazing.

Good luck, feel free to slag me off and completely disagree with everything I just put!  

1. It's not what makes YOU feel sick. I happen to think it's nice when used well.

2. Not true, a dark cave would be great when fighitng in a cave rather than a technicolor dream world background in a dark cave.

3. Nothing wrong with this one.

4. You used the wrong their.

5. Funny, I thought the fun gameplay and involving stories was what made Final Fantasy what it is today...

6. I disagree. One character fights can be fun if done half right.

7. A wall killing a huge boss in one hit? Unlikely. Hindering the enemy...likely.

8. Eh, I think battle music not really all that important as long as it's not annoying.

[zuhane1]

Seems you disagree with just about everything I put. It all depends, games with everything I listed are what all my mates like. If games don't contain much of that then personally (and speaking for my friends aswell) they suck.

[Roland_Deschain]

Well, for the most part I agree. I, however, use RTP style a lot. Why? Well, the game provides files for you to edit and mess around with, it's pretty common and it makes some systems, such as using weapons, easier than, say, sprite-sized or other styles. Also, you could be a bit clearer on "attributes," since I really don't understand what you were saying. As for battle backgrounds, I'd rather have them look like what they are supposed to BE rather than looking good. If you have a fight in, say, a dimly-lit house or a lightless void, the background wouldn't really be bright, colorful or epic. They'd be dark, ugly, and gloomy. Forest and flowery field backgrounds should be colorful, yes, but if you're in a wasteland or cave, the bright colors will hurt your eyes as they will be bright browns and grays. I mean, there are darker-themed games out there that use more gloomy/gothic backgrounds. Not everything needs to be, as Dragoon said, "technicolor dream worlds."
And, as far as I'm concerned, personality and story are EVERYTHING in a good game, not the random encounters.

EDIT: I'm sorta hypocritical, though. My current game uses sprite-sized battlers. Also, I only rarely use actual RTP files. I just use RTP STYLED crap since it's so common.

[Dragoon de Sol]

Yeah, I was on pain meds when I typed that, so I felt kinda light headed, and those were the best words I could think of.

And somethign to me doesn't seem right.


Zuhane, yo said you're impatient, yet if you can just press space bar to win, you don't like it. Wouldn't your lack of patience kinda be supported by the easy win battles?

[DragonBlaze]

Originally posted by zuhane1
I am a very impatient person. If I download a game where you incessantly bash spacebar until you win a battle, I usually delete it quite fast. Here are some tips for making battles actually enjoyable.

1. RTP has got to go, I know it's common sense but RTP really does make me feel sick.

2. Put in colourful and exotic backgrounds. It makes the battles a lot more epic-feeling.

3. Try experimenting at different angles. Sure, rm2k3 is side-on, but you could have a diagnol battle-system. Or the bad guys in the foreground and you in the background. Swap things around a little.

4. Give enemies there own skills. Don't make a shark punch you, get a bite battle animation, put it in a skill and set the MP cost to 0 and put it so it is effected by ATK. Now it will look like the shark has bitten you. If a shark punched you, wouldn't you be worried about the pollution in the water they were living in?

5. Skills, ailments and attributes. They practically made Final Fantasy what it is today. Make your characters have varied skills with all different effects, make skills inflict ailments like paralyze, berserk, poison, rotting. Make enemies inflict ailments on you too. Have attributes as well, so characters have to choose who to attack in which order. This makes you not be able to just tap spacebar otherwise you will probably lose.

6. Don't have one character, it is really crap. When you have a team of 2-4, you really have to look out for eachothers behinds and makes it much more interesting.

7. Have events and items. The odd storyline battle is good when it has character speech, or maybe you have to knock down a wall so it crumbles on the enemies and kills them all in 1 hit. You get the point.

8. Battle music... really really search around for it, have it custom- made even. You want a funky-***-beat that will never get old. Some song that sounds amazing.

Good luck, feel free to slag me off and completely disagree with everything I just put!  

I agree with pretty much everything there. You would think it would be common sence, but you'd be surprised by how many people don't do any of  that (mainly noobs).

Anyway, the RTP graphics SUCK!!! They're there for one reason, and thats to include something with the game for noobs to work with. I don't think i would have gotten into rpg maker if it didn't come with any graphics to work with. If you really want to make a unique game, you need to use unique graphics, and not use ones people have been using and seeing ever since rm2k3 came out, they DO get old after a while. Using them here and there to fill in for graphics is just fine, but you should use the rtp sparingly.

2. The background isn't too important. Yes cool backgrounds are, well cool. But if EVERY battle background is really cool, then the ones that are supposed to be really cool, are less cool... If that makes any sence. Anyway, a forest or a cave doesn't need to be that great. However, maybe later you want a special boss fight in the forest of cave, if you use a special background then, it would have more of an impact than if you used special backgrounds throughout the whole forest.

8. I think battle music is very important. A good beat just gets you into the feel of a fight, and yeah, can make the whole battle a lot more intense. I would like to add though that changing the battle music from time to time can have a really nice effect as well. Of course its like this for bosses (in most games) some areas should have differant music as well. For example, in the begging of the the game your fighting some rabits and birds while out hunting, you could play a more 'cheerfull' beat, cuz your not really in any kind of danger, however, if later in the game you're in some haunted house with ghosts and such, you shouldn't play the same music as when you were hunting, it would be better if you played something a little more creepy. However, changing the music too often could be a bad thing too.

[cherko]

One thing about battle music: I think most battle themes are too short. From time to time there are normal battles that will take a lot of time, and you'll hear the music repeat over and over.

In Final Fantasy VIII, the one thing that annoyed me the most when I was drawing 100 of a new kind of magic for all my three characters was the terrible battle theme.

It's video game music, not a hit single. So why must there always be such a convenient song lenght? A progressive 10 minute epic would fit much better.

Though, I guess for most RPG Maker games, there won't be a lot of long fights.

[Dominicy]

Maybe it's just my love of music but I think that battle music is a very important part of the battle itself.  A good battle song doesn't even necessarilly have to be a battle song.  For an ordinary battle it could be the music for the map, for a minor boss it could be the original boss music, and for major the original minor, and so on.  Ofcourse for the last boss to make it feel more "epic," shall we say, you want to try and find the best song you can use for it.

[coasterkrazy]

Originally posted by cherko
In Final Fantasy VIII, the one thing that annoyed me the most when I was drawing 100 of a new kind of magic for all my three characters was the terrible battle theme.

It's video game music, not a hit single. So why must there always be such a convenient song lenght? A progressive 10 minute epic would fit much better.

Though, I guess for most RPG Maker games, there won't be a lot of long fights.

I feel like I couldn't disagree more on all of these. FFVIII had a wonderful orchestral battle theme that eventually just blended in instead of becoming annoying, a progressive 10 minute epic would NOT fit for a regular battle AT ALL (special bosses and stuff yes, which is done anyway, but not normal battles), and why not many long fights? Perhaps some game is revolved around bosses or something. I think there have been plenty of long fights in good RM games. But everyone's entitled to his or her opinion...

Concerning what DB said about changing music, I like this only when done well, which isn't easy to do. I feel that battle music needs to be consistently enjoyable to listen to, and if multiple themes are used, they all better be as good as the next, so as to not make me think, "I wish the old battle theme was the one playing; this new one isn't nearly as good."

[cherko]

Why would a progressive 10 minute epic not fit a normal battle? It could begin like a traditional battle theme, but should change after a few minutes or so to offer variation in those really long fights.

[Dragoon de Sol]

Cause you're the one choosing to sit there and draw magic for "nth" amount of time, knowing full well how the battle music is. It's not their fault you don't like listening to their music.

[cherko]

Maybe I would've enjoyed the battle theme more if it was longer.

[Dragoon de Sol]

Then it'd be the same thing, just longer ^^

[SaiKar]

I made a similar, much longer tutorial about boss battles that got into world building. It should be in this forum somewhere.

Originally posted by zuhane1
4. Give enemies there own skills. Don't make a shark punch you

Now I really want to make a shark that punches people.