Building A Good Place To Fight - RPG Battlefields

RPG battles are often about characters. Protagonists and antagonists. But what about the battle arena itself? Where RPG fights take place can bring a ton of fun to the party. Game designers have a lot of options to put in extra mechanics, theming, and even characterization tools to make a battle screen feel like more than just an empty void. Let’s talk about how you can elevate RPG combat with a great location.

Featuring:
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (remake)
Pokemon, most gens
Chrono Cross
Unicorn Overlord
Baldur’s Gate 3
Mega Man Battle Network
Steamworld Heist
Valkyria Chronicles

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#megamanbattlenetwork #pokemon #papermario

[JackitK]

"A dice roll may fail you, but a cliff will not" are powerful words to live by.

[NotTheWheel]

"Mario Species and Luigi" was really funny thing you slipped in there.

[Xmanwashere]

"Potential: Misogynist" is the single most insane phrase I've heard all day

[ivanbluecool]

True power is Yu-Gi-Oh season 1 when you can make up whatever rules you want on terrain bonuses

[smugsneasel]

19:50 "With the power of misogyny, I have become unstoppable!"

[linksapprentice]

this is the first Design Doc video I'm watching after actually biting the bullet and starting to do gamedev part-time!

[lancelindlelee]

Valkyria Chronicles: Cannot forget that one guy who goes "Who's a sexy tank" when beside one.

[XeniKobalt]

"...Or a Stealth Rock comes flying in from The Expanse." I see what you did there, beltalowda.

[StevenBryceWroten]

I know Castform isn’t that good, but the buddy is my favorite Pokémon, and I love when they get a shout out at all.

[tobiasvanelk]

An unfortunate trait of Battle Network and its spiritual successor Star Force, is that a lot of its final bosses do not interact with the field at all, as they're just floating in the air. So if you've built your strategy around some sort of field combo, like grass panels and fire attacks, you're out of luck.

[Crocogator]

RE: Chrono Cross's field mechanic. A lot of people don't know you can cancel your attack and end a turn early, switching to another one of your party members. If you want to summon, you need to attack less and switch more, giving the enemies less chance to cast spells to screw it up. If you find yourself going into the negatives, that's why.

[Breeze]

6:48 I think the system being haphazard works in it's favor. Different weather isn't just "buff one type nerf another". It's like yeah, fire type Pokémon would be weaker in the rain obviously. Of course fighting on a hailstorm would hurt, and some Pokémon are more ready for these scenarios than others.

I think it's a great lesson to not apporach mechanics like this as "Every type has its own advantageous weather", but moreso "outside factors affect the battle and some characters are more ready than others"

[familiarnamemissing]

I’ve had an idea for an RPG where fighting enemies underwater makes lightning spells target everyone, even yourself, and fire spells do nothing of course. Most of the enemies underwater are water-types that are weak to lightning so whether you’re willing to damage yourself just to kill them sooner is up to you(there’d also be ways to work around it, like lightning-resistant armor or reflection spells)

[DracoMetorHD]

In Magical Starsign you had planets moving and if the stars aligned (literally) you'd deal more damage with the respectice element...I think, it's been like 15 years since i've played it

[edfreak]

the thumbnail makes it look like they're gonna fight and that's amusing to me for what a mismatch is, probably not in the direction a lot of people would expect it to be

[glubritz]

I love seeing so many of my favorite games all in one video. Megaman Battle Network, Steamworld Heist, Unicorn Overlord, Valkyria Chronicles... I feel so seen here.

[lilliangoulston]

Love the Valkyria Chronicles mention! Such a hidden gem of a series

[QvsTheWorld]

The Disgaea series make terrain an integral part of how you tackle a map. Like everything else in the game it is meant to be thoroughly abused. Some map effect can be used to to effectively make your unit invincible while you chip away at monsters that you boosted to get more exp.

[darkmonger]

2:44 idk why, but this whole sentence is just hilarious to me. I think it’s how you just tacked Luigi to the end

[jmh]

Pokemon and MMBN's robust competitive scenes makes them an excellent suggestion for any turn-based-combat aficionados to research, as they're basically status conditions and therefore are not that hard to implement. Good stuff as always!