Wow, lots of good ideas here
PVNUser and
Stil996 .
1. The RPS started with me trying to come up with an easy to implement 1:1 combat system. I agree that it is now perceived as overcomplicated and not fun but I think its heart is in the right place. I have over 40 hours of playing Peasant Quest and I support it on a monthly basis but I fucking hate its combat, the "classic" RPG combat. You make almost zero decisions and the ones you make are usually so obvious you'll lose if you don't make them.
I think the core of the RPS system is
fine as well, I primarily think that it's not enjoyable due to the presentation (elements I already mentioned in previous post). As already mentioned, I would simplify some elements of the current design, because I feel they're complicated for little benefit. However, in general the simplification would likely
make room for additional complexity in other, more interesting, ways.
While I think the foundation here has promise, in practice it seems almost everyone seems to prefer to use the chicken to skip the fights: If the game has a feature that is widely skipped by players then why is it there? To me that is an indication something about this mechanic isn't working right.
2. I actually love the core of the RPS system. Potentially, it can be very rewarding to successfully anticipate an opponent's next move and counter it. This brings me to two ways of determining the opponent's attack: random (with visual hints) or predetermined (without hints). Random with hints can be fun once you realize what each sprite/image translate to. Predetermined (with no hints) can allow me to convey the opponents' skill through their attack patterns. Currently most attack strings consist of 6 different attacks but less combat savvy opponents (like Jenna "the barbarian" from the Red Arena) have only 2, while Tana'dur's orc bodyguard has 7. It's another type of fun, to figure out the attack pattern.
On visuals versus memorization (#2): The least enjoyable element of the combat to me is simply that it drags on far longer than it needs to due to the requirement to memorize a pattern, likely starting a fight using all defensive options, and then picking the right moves afterwards. The best way to play this is boring. Sitting down and taking notes is good for
puzzle games like Myst, but doesn't make sense for this type of game, especially not when this is supposed to be a
combat system.
Worse, once you know the pattern of attacks, you no longer feel these are characters. It's just an automaton that is playing through a pre-scripted sequence of moves. I don't want
fully randomized attacks either, because I do like what you're trying to do in the sense of communicating fighting prowess. There's a variety of options on how to do this in a way that gives some of what you tried to accomplish, a sense of skill or fighting style, while also making the combat have some interaction beyond defense, writing down the pattern, and then winning.*
However, to make it actually
interactive, you need to give the player clues on what the opponent's next move will be. Personally I think doing this visually via a sprite pose is the best way to accomplish this. This also frees up the text dialog area so that when you have fights with wenches, you can actually have dialogue between the characters instead of just using it to display info about a slash doing 10 points of damage. At that point, the fight actually becomes part of the visual novel's buildup, so players can enjoy taunting and psychologically breaking the wenches before taking them.
* If you want to put the game source on GitHub or GitLab I would be willing to help work on the combat system.
5. Logs are a great idea. Perhaps it could be a bonus ("Combat Wisdom") provided by a Wench.
I don't like the idea of blocking this feature off entirely. It's something players should have access to from the beginning. However, it's reasonable that your combat log would only be of limited size, say 2 or 3 moves to begin with. Certain game tasks could increase the size of the log .
6. Black background: it's a practical solution since I don't always have a render suitable for combat.
Seems like it should just be a matter of rendering out whatever scene without characters placed in it, if I'm not mistaken?
Referencing "Taunt" and other actions that don't fit neatly into a Rock-Paper-Scissors system, I think such options are worthwhile and when I created the original concept art image, I had intended something more like this:
Options on the left there might be any number of things. Taunt is a fairly obvious one and has been discussed. For the second option there I have put "Viagra" but the core idea is simply an option that might be an item or tool acquired through some sidequest. The third button represents the main character requesting assistance from an ally (such as Domia) during the fight.
Eventually I would like to see these kinds of special options added. I did not want to suggest this initially because I feel like the current system is too complex, and has other issues that need to be addressed first before attempting to add these things on top of it.
