A request to geeks, on mechancics

[Resk]

So!, I'm making a game for part of my course in uni, and it's going mostly fine, however, the battle mechanic is a bit slow, so I'm trying to think up new ideas for it, which need to be fun, but swift, so I just want some input from people who don't know of it :3

The battle part of the game is played on a Hexagon grid, 15 'gons between each corner.
4 player character vs usually 3-5 foes
movment ranges are 2-4 hexes,
there is nothing special about facing
attack ranges are mostly 1-3 hexes
attacking is done via rolling special dice, can be considered to have 0,0,1,1,1,2 as the facings.

Current is based on rolling dice at start of encounter (based on a stat) highest score -> next highest creates turn order

Thus for example:
PC A:figures cooldown, moves, attacks(foe defends), sets cooldown
PC B:figures cooldown, moves, attacks(foe defends), sets cooldown
FoeA: moves, attacks(foe defends)
PC B:figures cooldown, moves, attacks(foe defends), sets cooldown
FoeB: moves, attacks(foe defends)
FoeC: moves, attacks(foe defends)
PC D:figures cooldown, moves, attacks(foe defends), sets cooldown

this tends to drag out a bit, so tried:

PC TEAM: A,B,C,D:figure cooldown, Move, Declare targets for skills, use skills in declared order, set cooldown
Foe TEAM, A,B,C: Move, Declare targets for skills, use skills in declared order,

but it still feels a bit clunky.

Basicly Tried: Move as individuals (See: tales of symphona/vesperia, FF tactics) & Move as Team (see: Disgaea, Fire emblem)

Any others peoples can think of? :3

-Resk

[Red]

hmnn.

I don't know, those are really the only two styles of turn-based grid/hex field turn based strategy games I know of ^-^ . That sort of game is just naturally kind of slow though, I like them, but I like slower paced games... hmm, in turn based games, sometimes you see timed buttons presses to determine success, to give it more of a sense of tension. Like the wheel of fate in Shadow Hearts, or the thing Mario RPG...or uhm, legend of dragoon. basically when a PC goes that have input a quicktime event type of thing to make the speciall attack more effect/work at all.
you can also maybe make combat more lethal, so you end up spending less time just attacking the enemy (even though I have no idea how lethal it is now ^^' ). But, that sort of backfired in Disgaea 3...at least I didn't like it :p

I don't know of any other setups without it being real time (like Vesperia/Symphonia) :/ so I'm no help >.<

[Resk]

Yeah.. Disgaea 1 was the best of that series :3

Anyway, more lethal might be an idea, just to get it faster, though admitadly the main problem is the players deliberating too long, I suppose if people knew the rules it could be faster,,, guess I'll just say that in the report XD,

As for the timed buttons, that's the dice :p, so you can shout out 'Anything but a 1!' and then promptly roll a 1,

Thanks though

-Resk

(oh, and the description for me is great XD, ty)

[Red]

aaahn, I see what you mean about the attack dice now! x3 haha. Truthfully, the deliberation is part of the charm of turn-based strategy games, but I guess if you're the developer you do have to try to mitigate it :<
the lethality worked really well in Fire Emblem...uhmmm...the one on the gamecube ^^' battles tended to move pretty quickly I think, especially for the number of units in a battle...which was like, 12 v 12? it seemed that way o.o lotsa dudes.

Anyways, you're super welcome, and good luck on your course/project! /cheer xD

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