How Do You Improve Turn Based Combat?

I love turn-based combat. Most of the time. But there are plenty of pain points that all kinds of games with turn-based combat keep running into. Fixing those points doesn't have to mean changing what makes the style great. Let's talk about some common game design problems turn-based combat games run into and how you can make JRPGs, tactics games, and more the best they can be.

Featuring:
Pokemon
Final Fantasy V
Super Mario RPG
Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam
Unlimited SaGa
Persona 5
Shin Megami Tensei V
Bravely Default 2
Grandia 2
Child of Light
Radiant Historia
Return to PopoloCrois
Tactics Ogre
Dragon Quest XI
Fire Emblem
Final Fantasy VIII
Chrono Cross
Disgaea

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[TheAaron]

I think alot more than other genres the quality of the soundtrack in turn based games is vastly more important than in other games. You need something to jam to while thinking what to do next.

[PowerPandaMods]

One thing to keep in mind is that the complexity of each encounter needs to be inversely proportional to frequency. If you're going to have frequent battles, they need to be simple. If you're going to have complex turn-based battles, then you need to drop the frequency. I have played many romhacks of RPGs where they seek to increase complexity, but don't do anything about frequency, and it just becomes a slog.

[OneTrueNobody]

7:33 - One of the other things Persona 5 does to speed things up a little is moving a lot of the wind-up-for-an-action animations into the menu-interaction phase itself. For example, in P1-P4, you'd select your actions, THEN your character would summon their Persona, the Persona would do an animation, and the spell would happen with its own animation. In Persona 5, you open the spellcasting menu and your character summons their Persona and enters a spell-prep pose, and the moment you confirm the action, they snap RIGHT into the spellcasting animation. A lot of animations that used to take up dead-air time between commands now play out in real time as you navigate the game's menus, and just revert backwards if you change your mind about a thing. It's something that a lot of turn-based RPGs probably SHOULD be doing.

[avereynakama]

I don't always mind the grind, but it is nice when even the game's like, "Okay, enough's enough." I like how in Earthbound, if you get strong enough, not only do the enemies actively run from you, but you can insta-win and get any and all drops from said battle.

Not sure how much this counts, but since Ring Fit Adventure is a turn based RPG, I like that the grind is in a variety of exercises. Maybe you want to redo a course or just some of the challenge gyms. Whatever you do will get you more XP if you need it as well as smoothie items (and, of course, actual exercise).

[CrushedParagon]

I love how the Mario and Luigi games do things. Every attack can be dodged, which means you could conceivably go the entire game without grinding. I once did a run of Bowser's Inside Story where I straight up skipped every optional encounter

[SwiftrunnerXXY]

A bit surprised you didn't mention how in Earthbound, if you've overleveled for an area, you instantly defeat the enemies you encounter with no battle required. Not only does it function as a great indicator that you've gotten all you can out of that area - especially how it combines with enemies running away from you at those levels - but if you DO need to grind a lower-level area for whatever reason, it helps trivialize it by making the battles end as soon as they start.

[aurumarma]

7:30 I'd also note that in Persona 5 you can press an input before it shows up, like when you hold someone up, you can press the attack button before any prompt comes up and it immediately goes into the attack animation. So even though there is stylish menus, you aren't required to wait for them.

This is noticeable in the Velvet Room, when you snap through menus so quick that animations and diologue aren't finished the jailers will insult you for being impatient.

[haruhirogrimgar]

I am so glad this video went beyond "Do what Paper Mario did." You did a wonderful job covering the massive scope of what turn-based combat can offer.

[ersia]

Yet another turn based mechanic is one I remember from an old PC version of the game Risk of all games. Normally in Risk each player makes their moves on their turn. In this game there was the mode "simultaneous risk" in which players didn't have individual turns but each player simultaneously, and secretly, registered all moves they would like to make for each of their units. When all players had locked in their moves all of it was revealed and played out as instructed. It made it so you never had perfect information of the battlefield and had to act according to what you could predict other players would do the next turn. It also made it possible to command several regions to attack one enemy region at the same time making it possible to take over powerful enemy regions if you had many weak adjacent regions.

I have been looking for that old game for years. If anybody knows where to get a functioning version I would be so happy. It's "Risk II" for PC.

[otakubullfrog]

I used to find the older JRPGs (like the early Dragon Quests) to be very grindy when I was a kid, but I've revisited a lot of them and realized that's just because I was overleveling until I could clear dungeons by just attacking and healing. You can actually run them at much lower levels if you use the whole spellbook, strategically defend and even run from battles sometimes. Basically, assume that every option the game gives you was put there for a reason.

[Catman]

I was actually really surprised you didn't include a bit about games like Persona 5 Royal, where after a certain point in the game (in this case Ryuji's social link) you can instantly kill significantly weaker enemies just by walking on them in the map, making it so you aren't forced to play out small-fry encounters over and over again

[NinjaKIngAce]

I feel random encounters play a part in the grind too. I find it doesn't feel as grindy if I can see the enemies on the overworld

[That_One_Guy-.]

Have been looking forward to this! Personally I like how the Megami Tensei does it, the emphasis on buffs and debuffs plus the press turn system makes it so you can`t jusst brute force your way through the a fight, you have to think about your team composition, and about each move you make.

EDIT: SMT did, in fact, get mentioned.

[JoshTheValiant]

There's a big element that can really make turn-based battles shine that I think was passed right over, despite many examples being shown in the video: positioning. Final Fantasy Tactics is the game I have grinded the most in my life, simply because the terrain involved makes every encounter a wildly flexible occasion. Positioning AoEs, lining up line attacks, baiting enemies into position, the constant rolling of position trying to get the enemy's back without sacrificing your own, trying to measure your position to minimize the number of enemies that could gang up on a single target, grouping your allies together to prevent a surround, spreading them out to avoid enemy AoEs... It's such an incredible avenue for variety and keeping combat fresh that is so rarely tapped. Even Chrono Trigger did some work with this, and the idea of a game like that taking one single additional step to make movement and attack range an aspect of the system would have made two of its most innovative features, spatial area of effects and team attacks, so much more rich. It's something that is kind of astounding hasn't been more explored in the space, frankly.

[thebearnado]

I really like the SMT/Persona aproach to battle rewards. In both Persona 5 Royal, and SMTV, I would be reconstructing my party after unlocking some new demons to fuse, or finally unlocking that one skills that makes a demon worth it. It makes each level up more than a stat boost, since every 3-5 levels im completely changing my team composition to adapt to bosses, and new demon unlocks. It might not be everyone's favorite thing, but its my favorite part of the series.

[seangallagher]

The fan made Pokémon showdown has a system where instead of telling you what a move did in a text box it just puts it on the pokemon’s health bar. So if you were hit by an attack that reduces defense there would be a .75 defense under your health. So much faster and it’s way easier to tell what the move did

[A_Generic_Name]

I love videos like this, where people are just unapologetically fans of something without ignoring its potential flaws.
My favorite turn structures probably are the multi-layered ones, like in Slay the Spire or Mystery Dungeon, where each combat instance is like a turn in a long-term test of attrition.

[RelativelyBest]

It's been a while now, but I recall really liking the combat system in Final Fantasy X-2. It used timed meters to determine when individual characters could make their move and didn't require them to wait their turn, so their attacks could overlap. At times it almost felt like real time, while still sticking to the classic formula.

[Vandel]

I'm developing a turn based RPG, and one thing I'm doing to help with the grind is rewarding players for defeating the same monsters over and over. I've played games with that mechanic, but I don't see it much. For example, defeat 25 slimes and you do an extra 5% damage to all slime type monsters (multiple tiers with more kills), gain double items, or extra money... you get the idea. Makes the encounter more rewarding because you are helping yourself with future encounters.

[WhatTheFnu]

I'm glad you brought up Fire Emblem. The classic games addressed the grind problem simply by there only being a limited number of encounters in the entire game. It made leveling up your team feel like a puzzle, and encouraged you to share the reward evenly lest a unit with strategically relevant abilities to your current mission be too underpowered to help. I get that's not everybody's cup of tea, but man...you feel like a genius when you get old FE games correct.

Even Three Houses plays with this idea. The clock is constantly pushing you forward to the next story beat, but how you choose to spend that time in the interim is yours to decide.