Hi

I'm doing a turnbased rouge-like dungeon crawler with a party of up to 6 heroes (similar to darkest dungeon). The player manages his party and in dungeons and during travels the party may run into groups of monsters, which starts combat.

Now:---------------

Heroes and enemies line up facing each other. A front row and a back row (for missile weapons and spells).

Heroes can swap places but there is no movement. You select targets for your attacks/abilities like in darkest dungeon or final fantasy.

This feels a little stiff to me...

Possible change:--------------

Im thinking to switch this system for a combat field of rectangular grids: upon starting combat a field will be generated with some obstacles. Heroes and enemies can move around in this field.

Offers more options when it comes to movement, weapon range, area damage/effects, blocking etc. But may also slow down combat as sometimes units must move to even have a target to interact with. Also demands some kind of "movement-AI" for the monsters.

I'll have simple static "portrait" images for the heroes/monsters in both systems. No animations.

What do you think would be the benefits and drawbacks of switching system?

Thanks

Erik

Hehe - "rouge" is a reddish-pink color, you want "rogue" if you are talking about sneaky lone fighters.

Tactical combat can definitely be slow. It's very important to optimize your UI so players can input their orders with as little menu-navigation as possible. I normally like tactical combat but, I think if you are planning to avoid animations entirely out of a desire to simplify, you would probably be better off with a final-fantasy style battle system.

If you're on the fence, have a look at radiant historia. Not exactly in-line with your concept, but it does well using a very limited grid to have a lot happen without it feeling ever too wide or to small.

I was skeptical until I played it, and actually ended up digging it quite a lot.

i am definitely a final fantasy tactics kind of battle system player. i wont play the old final fantasy or dragon warrior style combat mechanics games anymore. that being said...

if encounters are all random and tend to be short and simple then there should be not only monster AI but hero/player AI as well. allow the player to toggle on the player team AI when they dont want to bother with a trivial battle and toggle it off for tough fights or if they just want to do it all manually. i dont mean it to simulate the battle (unless that is what you want to do), but have the computer actually play it out and show it.

Yeah if i make ai it can be applied to heroes as well of course.

If i switch system, I'm aiming for an retro, almost boardgamish feel. Icons moving on a top-down grid (similar to how missions are described in hero quest and similar tabletop games)

Not THIS simple but you get the idea. Problem may be that it may end up feeling too reduced.

Oh, like Card Hunter? I really liked the tactical combat in that game.

http://www.kongregate.com/games/BlueManchu/card-hunter

Not that look maybe, but the same movement mechanics. So yes, somewhat similar to that in a way:)

To me it really depends on what your hoping to get out of the combat. Is the combat the focus of the game, or is the focus on the world or the story?

This isn't to say that combat isn't a major part of final fantasy or that the story isn't of the tactics games, just a different focus on it.

The final fantasy tactics or fire emblem type field combat is a lot slower than the darkest dungeon and final fantasy combat. However this doesn't make one combat style better than the other. The tactics games are focused on the combat and a lot of the game is about moving and fighting well in combat where as something like final fantasy has the combat more as a way to get resources/strength for being able to progress in the story and see more of the world. Also worth taking into account is that there will generally be more combat undertaken in Final Fantasy than Final Fantasy Tactics.

For me both styles work well for the focus of their game, but I don't think a Final Fantasy Style game would work well with the Tactics game combat as it would become repetitive and slower when doing it so regularly.

Have you ever played Enchanted Arms which has a combat system which sits somewhere between the two. The combat area is a grid (5x5 if I remember correctly), but one grid for each side and you can't cross over from your grid to the enemies. Your characters skills then differing shapes and number of squares that can reach. It does however include both an auto mode (not great a picking moves, but does stop you from having to input all the commands for simple battles) and a speed up which makes the animations progress faster which makes turns go a lot quicker (Note: All commands are entered for a turn and then both sides move in one go with the order of individuals based on stats).

Why choose? You could easily design a rogue-like game with specific "Boss - Rooms" that can get added in. So while your party is roaming its randomized dungeons with random encounters use a FF style system, fairly quick combat and loot. Then if they enter a boss room.. they get dumped into a room grid. You could then invent a dozen or so boss type characters who each have their own AI and types of attacks. This would let players have fairly quick combat through the exploration leveling up part of the game, and a more detailed experience versus a challenging boss character.