[XMark]

Just had a sudden flash of inspiration thinking of the magic system in my game. One of the problems with magic-using characters in FF-style games is that once they run out of MP they're pretty much useless until you fill 'em up again somehow. That can be a bit of a hassle, and I think that after a brief rest period of rest and focus a magic user could probably regain some of their magical strength.

So, at the end of a battle every magic user should automatically regain something like 20% of their missing MP to represent this. Not enough so that you just throw mega-powerful spells left and right all the time, but enough so that you don't end up with wussy magic dude trying to hit enemies with his stick until you find an Ether potion :)
_________________
Mark Hall
Abstract Productions
I PLAYS THE MUSIC THAT MAKES THE PEOPLES FALL DOWN!

[Bjorn]

Sounds like what almost any action RPG is doing. :-)

Btw, you call that a happy face!?

[biggerUniverse]

That doesn't look anything like Happy.
_________________
We are on the outer reaches of someone else's universe.

[Terry]

A simple way to do this might be to have MP restored as you walk around - of course, that leads to the problem of the player taking advantage by refilling their MP by walking around in circles. So you could have a cap - say, 25% of their total mp can be regained just by walking around normally.
_________________
http://www.distractionware.com

[Happy]

Couldn't you also have it fill slowly over time (outside of battle)? Say, 10 minutes for 100MP.

[Bjorn]

Yeah, so then instead of having to walk around in circles, you can just enjoy yourself in the shower and come back totally refreshed! Plus your character will be fully charged...

[XMark]

Nah, I think the time-based healing thing would just drag the game out, and doesn't make much sense in a turn-based game.

But this gives me an idea to expand on this. Maybe both HP and MP get restored a bit after battle, by a percentage based on Strength for HP and Wisdom for MP.
_________________
Mark Hall
Abstract Productions
I PLAYS THE MUSIC THAT MAKES THE PEOPLES FALL DOWN!

[Mandrake]

Ultima 3 did this, but in an interesting way. You healed a little and gained a little magic by walking around, but you alos consumed food. If you run out food, the oppisate happens, and both start depleting. It was neat.
_________________
"Well, last time I flicked on a lighter, I'm pretty sure I didn't create a black hole."-
Xmark

http://pauljessup.com

[Rainer Deyke]

Two points:

1. In most RPGs magic users are limited in how often they can cast spells but fighters can attack as often attack. This is silly, and hurts the game balance. In other words, I agree that there is a problem that should be solved. Another way to balance things is to make all physical attacks cost stamina, or to give all character both decent physical attacks and magic for situations where the physical attacks are inadequate.
   
2. I don't think that recovering mana after combat is the way to solve this, as this means that the party can basically fight forever without resting. Most RPGs have too much fighting, and too little penalty for fighting, already.

[Nephilim]

Well, it seems to me that the key isn't *when* or *how* the mage regains MP, but what that translates into in terms of the effect it has on combat. Here's one way to think about it:

View your characters' abilities as a function of potential damage done to the enemy. Use the warrior as a baseline, having about the same damage potential each round. Say, he averages about 100 points of damage each round at a given level, with a frequency of 1.0 (because he always attacks the same way). That gives you 100 * 1.0 = 100.0 points of expected damage per round.

Then, say your mage can do 500 damage with a spell at that same level (but can't attack otherwise). To balance that mage, he should only be able to cast his spell about one-fifth as frequently as the warrior can attack: 500 * .2 = 100.0. In other words, in your typical sojourn, the mage should only have enough mana to cast spells in one out of every five encounters. Or, put another way, in the time it takes the mage to regenerate mana to cast his 500 damage spell, he should encounter at least one 500hp monster.

But suppose you want to mix attack potentials, such as critical hits for the warrior, varied spells for the mage, or mixing spells and melee combat. Easy - just sum (damage value * frequency) for all combat options, where the frequencies add up to 1.0. For example, suppose you have a druid that has some small spell ability, but also some fighting ability. The druid can cast a 300 damage spell with a frequency of .1, but he can also attack each round in the usual fashion - how should his fighting ability compare to that of the warrior? Well, the damages and frequencies need to add up to 100, so you'd have 300 * .1 + X * (1.0 - .1) = 100, which works out to 70 over .9, or about 77. So, the druid should do about 77% of the damage that a warrior does to balance the druid's ability to do that extra damage every once in a while.

Once you have this formula, you understand that the challenge for the player is to utilize his characters to maximal effect. If you forget to pull out the druid's spell, and always attack normally, then you have a character that is only operating at 77% efficiency - but maybe that's a good trade in order to have a little extra bling-bling to whip out when the boss monster shows up.

This technique could also help balance the monsters against the players, the monster encounter rate, and clerical healing rates (if you think of healing your party's damage as hindering your opponent's damage potential). It could even help you determine the effect of items on game balance - what does that 30hp potion translate into in terms of game balance, and by extension, if that potion costs 100gp, what is the game balance value of a gp? Even if an item (or a spell) has no effect on combat, you can assign it a "story value" or "fun factor" value that can be measured on the same scale.

Obviously, you don't want your game to boil down to number crunching like this, but this might help with getting a good first stab at game balance.

Anyway, in terms of raw gameplay, I think it's a good idea to take steps to preclude party members from becoming useless halfway through an expedition. But it's also an interesting game mechanic to have to balance the strengths of the party to achieve your goal - the fighter is sure and steady, while the mage can sporadically whip out a devastating blast. In particular, you don't want your mages to be warriors that just do damage with magic - where's the strategy in that? With different frequencies and amplitudes of ability comes more engagement with the player.

Maybe you could explore other means for the mages to earn their keep when they're low on MP, such as having no-cost cantrips that do small amounts of damage or have non-combat effects (like finding secret doors, etc.). Then, your mage doesn't become useless baggage, but he can still retain his devastating spells with their sense of rarity.

[LeoDraco]

I've always felt that the "stupid" enemy---one that doesn't learn from its compatriots failures---was a bad thing. It might be useful for the engine to take statistical information about how the user fights battles. You know: for adaptation. Should your mage be overly using a particular magic spell, the enemies would start "finding" ways of adapting to that. (I.E, the usefulness of that spell towards a given enemy (or perhaps to all enemies in a given area) would decay over time.) The same could be applicable to melee damage.

So, essentially, the player would continuously have to adapt his playing style to the adaptations of the enemy. (Heh. Obviously, a certain, inverse decay would be desired, or else the user wouldn't be able to attack at all. So, the probability of an action being used would eventually drop to nil over a long enough period of disuse.)

On topic: the cost to cast the spell could be related to its use. So, as a heavily used spell is "fresher" in the mind of the mage, its invocation cost could be less than its base cost, making it more desirable to be cast than a mostly disused spell, whose invocation cost would be greater than its base cost. A heavily used spell would therefore be, initially, more useful to the user. However, factor in the enemy's gradual adaptation to regularly used commands, and the spell would eventually cause very little damage (even at a propitious cost). So, the mage would be more useful for a smaller amount of mana/mp, but only for a short while.

Aside: In the more recent Final Fantasies, there have been abilities (HP-/MP- Stroll) that cause a gradual regain of HP or MP as a user's party walks around the map. (However, these don't function during battle.) The obvious problem is that to make use of these abilities, the user often has to forfeit space on the character. (Like in FFX, a weapon/armor (cannot remember which one could take the stroll abilities; I believe it was armor) slot.) This sounds like something that might be a solution, XMark. (Although, it can obviously be abused.)
_________________
"...LeoDraco is a pompus git..." -- Mandrake

[Nephilim]

Another possibility would be to give mages the ability to cast spells with a lower MP cost (or none at all), provided they are willing to incur a time penalty. For instance, you could wing that lightning bolt for 40 MP this round, or concentrate for a round and wing it next round for 20 MP. Or two rounds after that for only 10 MP. (If getting hit while concentrating spoils the spell, you could give an even deeper price break.)

If the player has control over this, that gives another strategic element, and an avenue the player can use to extend the usefulness of his mages without them becoming overpowered.

[tcaudilllg]

In all the RPGs that offer them, I am an avid user of special effect magic weapons! :D Limit style attacks are another solution, also.

Personally I prefer realtime turnbased a la Final Fantasy over DQ's traditional turnbased.... That's an idea: turnbased in realtime. Give a time limit between which the player must issue all of the orders to the party, after which the enemy assault begins whether he has or not.

[white_door]

If you look at some of the early strategies for combat you see a small group of archers at the back doing the damage to the enemy, then a larger group of foot soldiers up front soaking up the damage and basically protecting the archers.

In many games, combat is often a simple version of this same basic strategy. Where you have a large fighter who has god like toughness, this represents the large horde of foot soldiers who can take a lot of loses before their effectiveness is lost. Then we have weaker magic users, that are merily a more exciting version of archers. They have less HP so if you don't protect them they get wasted, and bigger limits on how much you can use them so if you don't keep them stocked up with supplies their usefullness might run out. However they are always great to have around becuase in a tough combat (like a boss battle) they provide the bulk of the damage being done.

Personally I agree with Nephilim in so far as there should be a balance between power and frequency of use. The problem with making your mages regenerate their spells/magic too easily is... you either make them too powerful (and then fighters become boring) or you have to bulk up the damage of the fighters to make it balanced.. and then there ends up being no different between your characters and the players lose useful choices and therefore you lose gameplay.

Lots of games are balanced in different ways, but the key to keeping it interesting is to make sure your characters/classes are balanced in terms of the sum of their strengths and weakesses and not to reskin the same basic character or class over and over... :p

Now some people like to use magic users more, and some like to use fighters/whatever more. Its hard not to let your personal perference taint your game, but at the end of the day it is your game so focus on what you want it to feel like.

[tcaudilllg]

Good points made by white door.

Another thing worth mentioning is that some players actually make adequate use of the low cost status effect spells. I remember playing Final Fantasy Legend in particular and found that I could kill even bosses with the relatively inexpensive stone spell. For those players that will take the time to learn a game's weaknesses, the status effect spells in particular can be extremely useful and destructive.

Case in point, a presumed game design flaw in Final Fantasy IX made it possible to inflict status effects against bosses that should have been immune to them by using the tent item on them. Although few players noticed this possibility the first time they played, those who were willing to experiment found a way to cripple most of the game's bosses and advance very quickly.

Another case in point that I am particularly fond of was my cousin's use of Final Fantasy VII's elemental-fire materia combination, coupled with the evade percentages of Mystile and the high recovery rate of the Regen spell, to hold off the Ruby Weapon while Cloud's limit break built up. He then used the Mime materia to mime Cloud's Omnislash limit, keeping a steady balance between the power of the monster and his own health.

The lesson to be had here is that there is no one-trick pony to making game design better for all individuals. In practice, freedom of design and flexibility of play are the best ways to make the people at large happy.