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How to improve FLEE in RPG videogames ??

Dasun Suryn · 2018-09-05T04:32:01

So im creating a RPG system, where you fight 1vs1. Every enemy is different and have a different personality. I want to implement a flee option if you dont want to fight him, but I need some advice for what will be better: Option no. 1: Flee will be purely random and something like escale from fight. if you are higher level, there is higher chance for succesful flee, and if you are lover level, you have a smaller chance for flee. Option no. 2: Flee will be something like you giving up a fight and enemy wiil decide if he lets you flee. For example, if enemy is evil, you wont be able to flee, but if you are fighting a good guy, he will let you flee. Option no. 3: It wont be flee, but the button will change depending on yours and enemies level. If you are small level. the button will be "give up(flee)", but if you are a high level the button will be "walk away". In my game, if enemy HP is under some point (will to fight), he will give up, and you have option to keep fighting, or spare, or steal him. What will be better, should FLEE be run from fight, or like give up, or option no. 3 ??. With option no. 3, I dont know what would be the middle ground, if you are both the same (or similiar) level.

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by DasunSet May 24, 2018 03:52 PM

19 comments, last by Tom Sloper 5 years, 9 months ago

wintertime

4,154

May 25, 2018 02:39 PM

#1 reads like its only working when its unnecessary for the player and not working when its actually needed to escape from a stronger monster. That means its a superfluous feature or it could be simplified to always work.

#2 is the same kind of frustration for the player, on some monsters you can never use it when you need it (evil monsters, which are more likely strong and aggressive), on others you dont need it (friendly, probably weak and non-aggro monsters).

#3 also similar, if you are facing strong monsters the player will be punished (might get away or not and loose items or even loose the game) making the player even weaker and leading into a downward spiral, if able to walk away its useless as its wasting the opportunity to get loot or exp.

DasunSet

Author

May 25, 2018 03:25 PM

46 minutes ago, wintertime said:

#1 reads like its only working when its unnecessary for the player and not working when its actually needed to escape from a stronger monster. That means its a superfluous feature or it could be simplified to always work.

#2 is the same kind of frustration for the player, on some monsters you can never use it when you need it (evil monsters, which are more likely strong and aggressive), on others you dont need it (friendly, probably weak and non-aggro monsters).

#3 also similar, if you are facing strong monsters the player will be punished (might get away or not and loose items or even loose the game) making the player even weaker and leading into a downward spiral, if able to walk away its useless as its wasting the opportunity to get loot or exp.

How would you approach this problem ?? So it isnt the obvious choice for player to leave instead of trying to defeat a challenging opponent ??

Hello, Im DasunSet.

Scouting Ninja

4,574

May 25, 2018 04:50 PM

1 hour ago, DasunSet said:

So it isnt the obvious choice for player to leave instead of trying to defeat a challenging opponent ??

I think what @wintertime was saying is that there is no point in having flee as a random roll.

I have been thinking about it and there is no advantage from having players roll for flee. Players won't avoid battle, they want to fight them. Think of Dark Souls, avoiding stronger enemies and picking on the week is a acceptable strategy, players like the game because of it.

What is the point of the random flee check anyway? What does it do?

ferrous

6,164

May 25, 2018 05:17 PM

I hate random flee chances. Have you considered a non random version? Something like the opponent always gets one free attack, but the player gets away. Or the player can always flee, but the option isn't available until after X turns -- could even make that level dependent, so against a weak opponent, X is 0, while a equal or harder opponent, X is 1 or 2 turns.

DasunSet

Author

May 25, 2018 05:39 PM

13 minutes ago, ferrous said:

I hate random flee chances. Have you considered a non random version? Something like the opponent always gets one free attack, but the player gets away. Or the player can always flee, but the option isn't available until after X turns -- could even make that level dependent, so against a weak opponent, X is 0, while a equal or harder opponent, X is 1 or 2 turns.

I didint even thought about that. I just thought of a 4 way to do it and I think it is the best for my game.

As Scouting ninja and you wrote:

41 minutes ago, Scouting Ninja said:

What is the point of the random flee check anyway? What does it do?

Random chance is bad so my idea is, that if you decide to flee, you will lose some health depending on who you are fighting. Lets say you have maximum of 100 HP. If you are fighting a small imp, you will lose 5HP and if you are fighting a big guy, you will lose 80 HP for example. If you are fighting a good guy, he will spare you if you are low HP, if you are fighting a bad guy he will kill you if you are down to 50 HP and flee will take 80 HP. In my game, you can talk to enemies to convince them, to not wight you and win the fight by that, or if they are hurt, they can give up and you can decide, what to do with them. So having an option, that enemy will spare you is good in this scenario.

I dont know if flee is even a good idea.

I will have to try to implement it and then decide if it is. If you want guys, I can send you a demo for you to try, after flee is done and you can tell if it is good or doesnt fit.

Hello, Im DasunSet.

Scouting Ninja

4,574

May 25, 2018 06:21 PM

23 minutes ago, DasunSet said:

you will lose some health depending on who you are fighting...

This sounds like a good idea to me, gives a new twist to an old idea.

A thing to remember is that it's only when they realize just how much stronger a enemy is that they will flee, often after taking a lot of damage. So maybe it should be based on how much health a player had or stop at 1, that way you don't kill players outside battle.

Don't want bugs.

24 minutes ago, DasunSet said:

I dont know if flee is even a good idea.

I think it is a good idea because it saves time.

For example if a player just saw one of their team members got KO'd in one hit, they know it is a hopeless battle and can skip waiting for death. When fighting a enemy that isn't worth the time it lets them skip waiting for animations.

In Final Fantasy 10 flee was always important to me, not escape but the Flee ability Tidus learns. It had no penalty and made exploring much easier as Tidus almost always attacks first. It allowed exploring without the random encounters being a pain. It also made me realize just how simple the normal escape is and how little it mattered.

The problem I see with normal flee random roll is that it causes frustration. It doesn't matter if it succeeds a hundred times and only fails once; that one time is what players will remember.

SkyPenguin

May 25, 2018 11:02 PM

frustration of random fails would be greatly reduced if you animate it in some way to reflect the rng rolls. Have character move half off screen or fully or whathaveyou. Thus they can see the difference between "Oh darn! I almost got away." and "Dang, didn't even make it a step" and thus base some of their strategy on that without knowing the nitty gritty of creature stats.

DasunSet

Author

May 26, 2018 07:20 PM

On 5/25/2018 at 8:21 PM, Scouting Ninja said:

It doesn't matter if it succeeds a hundred times and only fails once; that one time is what players will remember.

I know exactly what youre talking about. It is exciting, when you have 5% chance of getting legendary, you are always thinking about it, but when you have 5% chance of armor breaking when you die, you always think about that 5% chance.

Maybe it could have been a good mechanic ro keep players from escaping a fight when there is a chance of dying, but better way would be to reward players when they defeat a strong enemy, so it is fair and satisfying.

My game is slower and kinda like Undertale. so should flee always end the fight, like if you succed to flee you dont lose anything, but if you dont succeed, you die and lose some stuff. In my game, the only way to level up, is it you have enough XP you need to beat a monster that is higher level than you, he loses a level and you gain a level so flee would be good agains annoying low-level mobs.

20 hours ago, SkyPenguin said:

frustration of random fails would be greatly reduced if you animate it in some way to reflect the rng rolls. Have character move half off screen or fully or whathaveyou. Thus they can see the difference between "Oh darn! I almost got away." and "Dang, didn't even make it a step" and thus base some of their strategy on that without knowing the nitty gritty of creature stats.

Oh yeah that is a good idea, maybe to have a little minigame when you decide to flee, If you are against small level, you flee instantly, but when you try to flee against high level, you will need to play a minigame, that is difficult, depending on enemy difficulty. How did I didnt thought of that before.

Thank you

Hello, Im DasunSet.

overSol

September 05, 2018 01:55 AM

I really like the idea of making the flee mechanic into a minigame of sorts. If done well the simple act of running away from an enemy can become exciting. To add to that idea, I think it would help to have the ability to lessen the difficulty of the minigame depending on one of the player's stats. Sort of like the lockpick system in Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. Inherent difficulty is based around the level of the lock (enemy in this case) and small little features are improved by having a higher lockpicking skill (base stat in this case). That way the player can have the option for baseline improvement to the system alongside the actual trial of succeeding at the minigame.