NOTICE: I accidentally posted this to the wrong app. So here's the blog post from two weeks ago!
Welcome back to another tour of our little venture called Sanctuary Saga. In this dev blog we’ll be diving deeper into a core system for any good JRPG: Combat! Let’s get to it, shall we?
Like many creative projects, we took inspiration from the greats before us and cobbled together our own unique system. When I played Darkest Dungeon, I was blown away by how immersive and strategic the battles were. Not only was skill selection important, but WHERE our actor was positioned mattered a great deal thanks to limitations on where actions could be used. I also wanted to emulate something similar to the iconic battle lines from the cinema, namely those from 300 with shield walls clashing together. Added to all of these were our own take on an Argument system, emulating how these characters would actually get along in the stress of battle.
Easy peasy, right?
The trick was ensuring our battle system could account for ALL of these things, making it an ideal playground for players to explore. Each of our Guild Leaders do have their own set of six skills (plus the generic Attack and Guard actions), each with row requirements. Attacks are either Melee, which MUST target the enemies’ front lines, or Ranged, which can target any enemy in the fight. The enemies all have their own skill as well with the same restrictions leading to skirmishes emulating those vast armies clashing I previously mentioned.
Along with the row based structure comes all the usual buffs and debuffs you’re used to seeing in RPG games these days. These include modifying base stats along with damage over time (Bleed, Burn, Poison) and heal over time (Logistics and Mantra). To allow us the ability to empower enemies even more, we added in a Second Chance feature similar to DD’s Deathblow mechanic. Simply, if a Guild Leader was above 1 HP prior to an attack, it cannot knock them out. They don’t like this very much so it DOES increase their Argument meter by a lot each time Second Chance is triggered.
Oh. We also added an Argument Meter. The higher the meter, the more likely a Guild Leader will spend their turn Arguing with someone else and not perform the action the player selected for them. Managing the Argument Meter is a full time job and our support roles have a separate set of skills to do just that. It is absolutely possible for your party to be near full HP and spend the rest of the fight arguing until the enemy brings them all down…
The last thing players will notice from our screenshots is there are four Guild Leaders in the active battle party. But aren’t there six characters in the party itself? Yes, there are in fact six. Two members of the party remain out of the battles. Between fights the player can swap anyone in and out. If a party member is knocked out, they will remain incapacitated until the party is able to rest during the expedition or until the party returns to the Caravan. While it may not be the end of the world for one or two Guild Leaders to be incapacitated, you’re really going to feel it when the third one is KOed! Two- and three-manning a dungeon is not for the faint of heart.
That wraps things up for the battle system of Sanctuary Saga! What party compositions are you most interested in trying? Let us know in the comments!