Dj dovis wrote:

I was wondering what battle system is good?

If you're going with an MMO type battle system, I would recommend something similar to a simplified version of FF12's gambit system. Where you can tactically prioritize abilities to be automatically engaged in combat.

And 1 more thing. Everybody keeps saying that WoW has a great battle system. I never played WoW myself but i like to know what all the fuss is about. Mind telling me?

WoW offers an free trial, go try it for yourself?

Dj dovis wrote:

whats FF12's gambit system?

Basically, each character has 10 ability slots (sort of like hotkeys). You can assign abilities to each slot, and the AI will consider them in the order that you place them. So, you would use something like Healing > buffs > special attacks > basic attacks. The AI then considers each ability each time that AI has a turn, and uses the first applicable slot.

You would have healing prioritized first, so if any of your characters are low on HP, action would be taken to heal them. You could then place buffs/debuffs, which would intelligently be cast on targets who weren't already effected by them. Then any special abilities, things with long cooldowns or high mana costs that may run out of uses early on. Finally, you finish if off with a basic attack, so if no other abilities are applicable, your character will at least poke the enemy with their sword. Though AI primarily drives the combat, players can still issue specific orders to their characters.

That is a broad example, but you could design characters as tanks by inserting taunt abilities, DPS by focusing only on attacks, have characters specialize in magic or support, etc.

In FF12, this setup is also accompanied by a conditional statement. So you can more specifically tell your characters to heal any party member when their HP is below a certain %, for example. However, that extra layer of input only seems to overcomplicated the system for both the user and the developer.

IMO, this concept embodies what MMO gameplay is all about, without devolving that gameplay into staring at a hotbar while waiting for your next ability to cooldown, so that you can press your one key per second. I'm actually quite surprised that no actual MMOs have implemented such a system, and that it has been restricted primarily to single player RPGs. Not only does it allow for more tactical and intelligent gameplay, but it wouldn't do much towards obstructing players that still wanted to spam their 1 key every few seconds. The new Star Wars MMO would benefit greatly from such a system, due to the way they have their abilities setup.