Tactical RPG Interfaces

Click here and disable ads!

Looking for some thoughts on turn-based, party-based tactical RPG interfaces.

As far as I'm concerned, the gold standard is Temple of Elemental Evil:
http://img.gamespot.com/gamespot/images/2003/pc/templeofelementalevil/0922/toee_screen020.jpg
http://reviews.cnet.com/pc-games/th...7-30804405-4.html?tag=contentBody;screenshots

I really like how they represented the move/double move/attack action with the gauge on the left. The portraits on the top for turn order are a no-brainer, but the radial menu was pretty stupid.

Another feature I enjoyed was the detailed information in the combat log. It shows the rolls and the modifiers. From what I remember, Final Fantasy Tactics just shows the % chance to hit, but not how it was calculated.

Since I'm working on the interface of my turn-based tactics game right now, I thought I would get some opinions here. One thing I'd like to do is make it so you can mouseover the % chance to hit an enemy or toggle a more information option and see the effects of each buff and debuff as they stack together. I think the only way to have support/curse classes seen as valuable by most players is to either provide this sort of visual information or make them overpowered. Otherwise, most people usually stick with the straight damage improvement abilities for their first playthrough. I imagine this is partly learned, as few games get support classes right.

Which turn-based interfaces did you find the best? Which parts?

How do you feel about having access to a detailed combat log? Does it ruin the 'mystery' of the game or is it a nice thing to have?

Do you need a set of portraits for your party somewhere on the screen or can they just be color-coded in the turn order at the top of the screen? (Assuming that hp/mp/buffs/etc are all still easily visible.)

ToEE is great. It and JA2 are the main influences of my game's interface. I really like how the 'drop menu' sort of controls work for combat in ToEE, it's a great way to easily allow a huge range of different actions.

I like a combat log and portraits, since you asked.

1) I have always been in favour of heavily hotkeyed interface and I think Knights of the Chalice did a pretty good job without annoying radials or dropdown menus.

2) I do like to see a combat log in games which use familiar game mechanics like DnD or D20 but when it comes to something new, I would much rather makedo without such. I think, for a tactical game, Fallout approach is much better. Chance to Hit tooltip when you mouse over an enemy and simple Hit/Miss/Critical Hit feedback and amount of damage done is quite enough (narrative part is optional but no less appealing ) . Or, if anything, I simply suggest you to have option to turn such feedback on and off, Infinity Engine games - style.

I really like your idea about being able to discern buffs/immunities. Will you make it feat/skill-based? Will it be giving false feedback if the enemy has X points in Y skill which would allow them to conceal their buffs or somesuch?

3) Once again, I think that KotC managed it pretty well with a simple text-based interface.

What is your opinion of marking menus?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtH9GdFSQaw

Icewind dale 2 and Jagged Alliance 2 is where things are.

I need customized portrait sets. I rarely see any game where the default set please me.

I like super detailed but can turn off parts you dont like combat log. Rolls and all.

Status icons are a good idea. When I cast elemental fire summon I want to check with 1 glance that the whole party is protected from evil. When I prepare to throw a mustard grenade I want to see that the whole party has gasmask on. Manually check each member is too timeconsuming.

make your rolls hyperlink to a ingame manual. Check out KotC for inspiration.

The flexibility of the ToEE keybinding is appreciated. However, don't make the mistake of storing that on the savegame like they did. It's highly annoying to rebind everything when starting a new game.

Oh, and avoid the trap of IWD2: not clear visual cue of spell's range.

NWN2 do a good job on this: you can calculate where to throw an AoE spell close enough to shave. On Iwd2 I cant count the number of times I throw Flame Strike on my melee warrior's head who is stalling the whole advance on a corridor.

The ToEE zones-of-control design is great too.
Still, probably the lack of feedback on the infinity engine for the cloud spells was on purpose, for those cannonballs to have a small element of uncertainty and skill. The rules probably suggested it.

Not enough obviously

I disagree with this notion, since as a generic stereotypical engineer, I can still definitely tell a bad interface when I see one. Namely, it doesn't look anything like the previous interface, and it doesn't DO any of the things the previous interfaces did. Making a GOOD interface, or at least a passable, one, is pretty straightforward: Make sure you can actually do everything you could before, in the same way that you did before. Also, make sure it doesn't do stuff it's not supposed to be doing, and DAMMIT STOP NAGGING ME.

I just looked into marking menus and apparently they are patented. I have no idea when they were patented or how long patents last.

http://www.autodeskresearch.com/people/gord

Edit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_of_patent

http://www.patentgenius.com/patent/6618063.html

So, only 7 years to go.

CAPITALISM!

For the input of combat actions I have my own idea that I prototyped last night. I am quite happy with it and find it superior to any sort of radial or popup menu. Maybe I should get a patent, lol.

You should be able to queue up some actions when paused even if not in combat.
For instance, for buffing before combat without having to wait for the old spell to be cast. Cancelling those too, so a pause queue overlay per character would be appreciated.
Maybe only queue when paused, i'm not sure about that.

Programmable scripted AI would be nice too. But maybe only for the player/hotkeys stuff. If you end up using one of the 'naturalistic' methods to program AI like genetic algorithms or neural networks or support vector machines, that shit can't be programmed per se (though i never saw a rpg using those that i know of - they tend to use scripts to enforce a 'narrative' and 'character')

I like the idea of allowing the next action to be targetted while animations play. I will try to implement that when I get to that point.

Wait, is your game TB always (like a roguelike) or TB only on combat?

Combat will probably be a separate screen/event. Interactions outside of combat aren't designed yet.

Knights of the Chalice worked well.