A Caliross Analysis: About Combat (Patreon)

Back with the Caliross post-mortem! This time around, I guess I should spend a few words on combat. While I like several JRPGs a lot (FF 7, 8, 10, Chrono Trigger, Breath of Fire IV, Legend of Legaia and so on) I mostly dislike frequent random encounters. While some combat is enjoyable, especially when you find new enemies and/or new team compositions or skills, often times the regular battles are repetitive and unexciting in the long run. If I were to design a system with random encounters, I might make it so each fight makes it less likely to face the exact same encounter, or something similar, and I'd definitely crank down the encounter rate or tie it to some other general mechanic (say, an alert system that turns on if you are seen or take too much to handle an encounter, and which has ways for the players to turn off the alarm).

All of this to say, there is a reason why I didn't have random encounters in Caliross. Not only I don't think they were a good fit for the game thematically (can you imagine a decently civilized country where you get randomly harassed by monsters or bandits every few kilometers, or completely sealed off temples crawling with monsters around every corner?), but I also have a personal distaste for when they are excessive.

I have considered multiple times to have side-challenges with dangerous areas where random encounters would be a thing, but it's the sort of stuff that needs good planning, good rewards and probably a more in-depth combat system than what I had.

Speaking of which, the combat system is probably too simple for its own good. While I did want to avoid too many redundant skills and spells, it ended up being limited. That's also because I didn't include companions in the game (other than your summons) which further limits what you can do in terms of role assignment, combinations and so on. I think not having companions was a bad idea, in hindsight, as it not only limited the combat, but also gave us less opportunities for character development and interesting dialogues. Even if being a Shapeshifter is a secret, you can find some people you trust and/or have some friends/relationships that come from before the events of the game to onboard some interesting characters.

Anyway, despite its flaws, I think the combat still followed a few principles which I think are good:

1) Combat doesn't take too long, nor it is a "3 touches and you are dead" experience for the players in most encounters: I am sure everyone has played one or two RPG Maker games which have combat designed by complete lunatics: a random battle with early monsters that takes 10-20 turns, enemies that can kill you in 3 hits with no good healing options (possibly in a long maze, with save everywhere disabled). The combat overall is probably on the easy side, but I think it achieves having a reasonable time to completion per fight. Having no random battles also makes it easier to strategize and prepare if you fail.

2) No STUPID status effects. Unless the player has a reasonable way to know beforehand that a certain area will feature game-warping status effects, or players have access to free/innate immunity/cleansing effects, you shouldn't give enemies access to spells/skills like "sleep" "petrify" "confuse" "insta-death" and so on, ESPECIALLY party-wide ones, and especially if they can stun-lock players. Having to sit around hoping for the AI to be stupid and not abuse such abilities is nonsense, and to begin with it's either irrelevant because you have the equipment to deny the effect, or players are deprived of interactivity. For it to be what it SHOULD be (a reward for taking your time to prepare) there must be a reasonable way to learn what challenges you are going to face and to manage your finances so that it makes sense to buy such items in a timely manner (that isn't "run into a random encounter, get stunlocked and reload a previous save so you can grind for the money you need").

3) Have some unique designs or gimmicks. Regular combat quickly devolves into damage trading, so having at least a few non-regular fights should be mandatory. The game has a few, and I think they work well for what they do. If anything, maybe I should have done more and also have some battles interact with puzzles/events before said encounter.

4) Have some interactions among spells/elements. I actually think it might have been better to go the Chrono Trigger/Breath of Fire IV route and have certain special dual skills unlock if you combo the right abilities, but that was a bit complicated and with just 2 characters at any given time it didn't feel right to use, in the end. At least we do get status effects given by spells of certain elements that interact with other elements to create some combos that way. It's very bare-bones, though, I must admit.

I think those are most of the basic ideas I had behind the current system. I never found the time to improve it, and I think the idea I originally had to not use levels and XP in the game was incorrect (at least, not without something to substitute it with), as it left less ways to dole out combat rewards and new skills, and it robbed people of that feeling of progress so common in such games. Maybe it's better than having a bad progression system, but that's one aspect I am really unhappy about. I think an XP system tied to quest/goals completion could have been cool, as an alternative (rewarding combat with XP feels too much like a bad loop which discourages alternative solutions).

Anyway, that's all I have for today. If you have more questions on the topic, feel free to leave a comment. I might have a poll for 5$ and higher tier patrons on what to talk about next, as I have a few possible side-tangents, but we'll see. Until next time! ^_^