One-on-one battles Options

[CWCprime]

What do you think of one-on-one battles in certain situations in turn-based RPGs? I usually get the feeling that they are taboo, since there is a severe lack of options, and battles are hindered as a result. Obviously, if the whole game is one-on-one, it isn't going to be very good, but for certain situations, do you think one-on-one battles are justified if they're under the right context? For example, in a game story I have, the final battle is one-on-one. In a lot of stories (like in film, not just games), a one-on-one final battle is the only way to go. Think about the final battle in Return of the Jedi.

[Show/Hide] ROTJ Spoilers

Would it have been the same if Han Solo or Lando had been by Luke's side fighting Darth Vader? Of course it wouldn't, it would downplay the significance of Luke's lone triumph over Vader, his triumph over the dark side of the Force.

So it ultimately comes down to sacrificing game design for better story telling. How should one-on-one turn-based RPGs battles be balanced? Are there any examples? Thoughts?

This post has been edited by CWCprime: Feb 16 2012, 09:26 PM

[Turkwise]

The biggest problem I see with a one-on-one final battle is that the other characters don't participate, after the player has worked throughout the whole game to level them up and equip them and such. A brief final phase could work, if done well...but that's the problem.

The typical RPG battle system does not support one-on-one battles. Strategy is based on a group's ability to use supporting and attacking abilities. Abilities which work well for one-on-one fights do not usually work in a group-based system. Unless your battle system is considerably more complex than (or very different from) the usual "attack, generic magic, item, escape" I do not see how the fight could be the climax a game needs.

This post has been edited by Turkwise: Feb 16 2012, 09:37 PM

[Kaust]

So it ultimately comes down to sacrificing game design for better story telling.

How so? The successful inclusion of it (as a one-off or rarity) would actually be much greater game design than a game without it.

Though I agree with Turkwise

The typical RPG battle system does not support one-on-one battles.

How awful is that fight between Zidane and Amarant in FF9? Just attack, attack, attack. Use a potion if you're low, use Trance if you're lucky. But ultimately its a boring fight, the only variety being that he occasionally moves around the map (inconsistent with the rest of the game) and if you had chosen to attack before he moved then you missed, making a long boring fight longer and now a little frustrating.

Ultimately you're gonna want to make this match memorable; you want to milk the fact that its a rare fight, perhaps the only fight like this in the game, by making it a little tougher, but don't just give 'em good stats and a boatload of HP.
I'll edit this post with a link to strategy battles in a minute, I think combining one of them with this idea has a lot of potential.

Edit: here's that link - http://www.rpgrevolution.com/forums/index....showtopic=53575
and here's a link I included in that thread too (its a more direct answer, though there are some great ideas batted around in the first link) http://www.rpgrevolution.com/tutorial/desi...ounters_76.html

[Knot]

Well, this is basically exactly what FF7 did with Sephiroth. The whole game Cloud is chasing after Sephiroth so the idea of a final showdown is inevitable and I think they handled it pretty well. Basically, the entire party fights him at first so you have all the tactics and feel like you’re using all the skills and equipment you’ve invested in your party throughout the game. Then at the end there's just a brief one on one which is basically unlosable between Cloud and Sephiroth where you just have a few cool animated attacks to finish him off (I think, it's been a while since I played it).

Depending on your story you could work it like this, with the whole party taking on a bigger and badder version of the boss to reduce him to a more mortal state before letting the main character have a short duel. However, keep in mind that some cases may make this seem cheap. If your whole party is just beating on the bad guy and then when he's low on health they let the main character finish him off, that's a little unheroic. The enemy somehow has to be more than human or have some advantage (technological/magical perhaps?) to give a reason for the whole party to take him on before letting the main character duel.

Alternatively you might have two bad buys, a really tough one and one who has a more personal connection to the hero. You can then have the party fighting the big bad and afterwards have a duel between the main character and this secondary evil. This wouldn't be anticlimactic (heck, it would be more climactic) since through this duel the main character is fulfilling a personal goal which has been building through the entire game and can come off more dramatic that simply saving the world.

In the end I’d say that it’s a pretty easy thing to do, but like Kaust said, you don’t want it to be boring. So I’d keep it short and let some other battle fulfil the gameplay climax while the duel fulfils the story’s climax as described in the above scenarios. In the end it depends on how you’ve structured your story and therefore what options are available to you.

This post has been edited by Knot: Feb 16 2012, 11:02 PM

[Yuu-Mon Musuedo]

Well... Being that Thousand Arms is one of my favorite games on the PSone, I have to ambit it hasn't got much love. Barely anyone knows of it and it might be because of the combat itself.

Thousand Arms battle system plays almost as a one vs one through the whole game. I say almost because your two other party members will support the front member by taunting, cheering, and throwing items. If the front member is defeated or withdraws, second member will take their place. The enemy follows the same rules too. If turn-based RPGs had this like Thousand Arms, I would actually love it. Because it feels like something new and make me think out my plan of actions.

As for a final battle being a one-on-one. Most games I played and did that made it kind of stupid. The final duel with Sephiroth, you can be level 6 and still beat him. He is meant to die, it was scripted. Something like that is just lame. If the final battle was done with something like, stop the final badguy from using a very powerful move by doing this action, and lowering his defense, etc. Then I would actually like it.

[heisenman]

Last Scenario sort of did one-on-one battles at a point (more of a 1vs2 and 1vs3).
It worked because it blended with the story, as your group decided to split to attack the enemy from different sides (or to counterattack the enemy who was attacking from different sides, I don't remember exactly) and it was great because you could chose which character would face which enemy.
Better to send the mage against other mages so he has the advantage of being resitant to their spells, or better to send him against rogues with high attack but low magic defense?

[PalX]

Ultimately you're gonna want to make this match memorable; you want to milk the fact that its a rare fight, perhaps the only fight like this in the game, by making it a little tougher, but don't just give 'em good stats and a boatload of HP.

I wanted to make special emphasis on this part of Kaust's post, especially because you're doing a one-on-one final battle. Final battles must be memorable since they leave an impact on the player. It's the last impression they get from your game, you MUST make it memorable.

Give your character a special skill or make the final battle require the use of strategies different to all the other bosses, and most of all make it VERY important to the story.

Just to cite an example, MOTHER 3 used a one-on-one battle as the final battle and with a very good reason considering who the final boss is.

[bulmabriefs144]

I had exactly two one-on-one battles. The first was with the fighter and his swordsman trainer (which I found needed a battle cheat of having the boss stop attacking when you were low on hp/mp, or it was absurdly difficult (because of no healing). The second one was a mirror match with the hero and her evil half (sorta like the paladin battle of FF4 but with actually having to fight). Because of no backup, one-on-one are likely to be in the enemy's favor, but this is probably okay, if before the challenge wasn't really there.

The biggest pain was pulling party members out, and popping them in properly.

How awful is that fight between Zidane and Amarant in FF9? Just attack, attack, attack. Use a potion if you're low, use Trance if you're lucky. But ultimately its a boring fight, the only variety being that he occasionally moves around the map (inconsistent with the rest of the game) and if you had chosen to attack before he moved then you missed, making a long boring fight longer and now a little frustrating.

Heavy strategy is kinda difficult to do when you're the only party member. The best thing to do is be fighting a sort of warrior mage that can throw a ton of varied effects on you so even if you're only attacking, you'll need to counter status effects and such.

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Feb 17 2012, 09:30 PM

[thegrin]

I think it might work to have all characters fight the final boss and after the battle is won, let one character fight it again in a second form.

[rewells]

In my last project, the player only has one hero throughout most of the game. That design decision was based on the story (The Epic of Gilgamesh) for which the plot is based. To make battles not too stupidly boring, I built my system around the main character, so that most of the game's strategy comes from finding and setting up his equipment, skills, etc. I also added elemental strengths and weaknesses to every enemy, so figuring out and remembering which skills work against which enemies is key to battle. Practically, this means most battles in my game end quickly, in or against your favor depending on how well prepared the character is.

In RPGs where one-on-one is a rarity, it is usually part of the narrative, so the player has no time to setup the character and the battle is usually rigged so the player can't lose. I think the final battle between Cloud and Sephiroth in FF7 works well from a story standpoint because the plot is built around their feud, and making the player have to press buttons to finish him off and giving the illusion that Cloud lose use rather than just showing a cutscene with Cloud stabbing Sephiroth is a little more satisfying, but the battle itself cannot be described as fun.

If you're trying to make one-on-one battles interesting, I'd say give the player a chance to setup their character before the battle. I guess that doesn't make battle itself interesting, but it gives the player control over more variables that will affect the outcome of the match beyond how quickly they can alternate between mashing attack and heal.

Another idea: you could incorporate mini-games/quicktime events in one-on-one battles. In God of War (I know it's not an RPG), once you weaken an enemy you have to grab it by press circle and then the game gives you timed button commands you have to press to finish the enemy off. If you hit the wrong button or don't hit the right one fast enough, the enemy gets an attack in on you. Not the most exciting thing in the world, but it adds the factor of reflexes to keep players on their toes.

[Shaddow]

I see a lot of reference to final fantasy games here, and one thing I'm shocked to not see is references to Suikoden. They do all sorts of battle, minor strategy army fights, six on six rpg battles and one on one duels. It works well as your stats matter, but so does important strategy, you have three moves, an attack, a heavy attack and a defense, it works as rock paper scissors. Attacks do damage but only a minor amount to those who defend, and do good damage to someone who is also attacking. Heavy attacks deal a heavy blow to normal attacks and also prevent them from hitting, while defense actually counters heavy hits.

Now they use these constantly in the game to do epicness, but one of the most epic moments is with Luca Blight in suikoden II, it's not even the last fight, but he's such a bad-ass that you must beat his army in a war match, then it takes not just one group to beat him, but three groups of six, then after that you must do a one on one duel with him and your hero, and he's down to a quarter life, if you screw up you can still lose. They make it even more epic by him surviving, hurt, and being taken down by a bunch of arrows. So one on one fights, if done correctly, can be some of the most epic story telling out there.

[vvalkingman]

@Shadowval I just wrote a whole post about suikoden before I saw your entry lol

I agree with everyone else on this subject. When done right, one on one battles can be epic. My two cents though, if this is the final boss we are talking about and you have had to level multiple characters throughout the game only to have your main be the only one to challenge the ultimate bad guy.... at least give the other characters something to do (ex. hold the line mini game kinda like ff3, have the team split up and take out the final bosses' generals/power sources/avenge their father's death by defeating a lesser final boss, basically just make it so the rest of the team is useful despite the fact that they aren't in the final battle....give them their own "final battle") or have a pre-one on one duel final battle in which the whole group participates. Suikoden 2 did it best as Shadowval stated where Luca Blight went toe-to-toe with 3 groups of 6 characters(yea that's right, 18 of the army's strongest fighters...AT THE SAME TIME!), all leading up to a one on one duel with the main character, only to SURVIVE amongst the bodies of his fallen soldiers and then he gets shot up with ten - twenty arrows before finally going down. (yea, this was only the halfway part of that game lol) I mean heck, I played that game a good 6 years ago and I still remember that epic scene even now. If you're going to do something like that, do it right and make it memorable. God is in the details

[Kimidori]

persona 3 have an one-on-one ultimate boss battle and i think it worked pretty well

[Sparrowsmith]

I guess one-on-one battles have a lot to do with the size of the party. Everyone in the party should do something significant, but if the story is told better by investing in a few one-on-one battles that could work to.

I imagine this would work better if, throughout the game, there were several one on one battles. You could even add tactics to it. Maybe before each 'major' battle, you split the cast up through choices.
Example:

"Four of them, three of us. It's your call [x]"
-"You guys take it easy, I've got the two on the left."
-"[y], you've got two knives, right?"
-"Think you can handle two. [z]?"
-"We stand together"
Then you play each of the battles, depending on what you chose.

Then the final battle would divide itself up by emotional investment. X takes on their long term rival. Y holds off the guards (who used to be his friends or something). Z has to last as long as possible against a near impossible bad guy.

So yeah. 1 on 1 really depends on patterning and story.

[Tsukihime]

How about pokemon? They've got 1-on-1's and people don't seem to mind.

[thatbennyguy]

How about pokemon? They've got 1-on-1's and people don't seem to mind.

Still, you have the option to switch between 6 pokemon.

[Tsukihime]

Oh, I thought OP meant 1-on-1 battles, not 1-man-party battles.

This post has been edited by Tsukihime: May 21 2012, 01:45 PM

[Nintendoshs]

I only have 2 one-on-one battles per storyline in my game (hero,villian,werewolf). In the hero set (Which has the best two, and ethe only one we will use for examples.) My main character, Max, fights a mirror version of himself, but evil. The reason this is a one-on-one is because the rest of your party thought he was you. The other is the final boss. The final boss is invincible but to beat him, you must lower his health and a character must hold back some of his power and then the rest can continue fighting. So for the boss it is 1vs 4, 1 vs 3, 1 vs 2, and of course the 1v1 fight with the main character to finish him. This will be a strategy fight because Max's father was a warrior and his mother was a wizard. At the end, the boss has the same health and better stats than the hero. The boss was corrupted by the power of the goddess that was supporting the heros. He killed the goddess and released a magic(s?) that started eating away at the world. Most of the game is spent fising the corruption so the fight is very planned and fair.

[Mikeylangelo]

Drat! I was hoping nobody had thought to mention Suikoden II. That was the daddy of all games in my opinion. Hell, it was the GRANDdaddy! It shows how moving away from the norm makes a game so much more memorable. I DO think if 1 on 1 battles are used, then they should be different from that particular games standard battles, not only to avoid boredom, but to make them stand out. In Suikoden, its more of a rock, paper, scissors minigame, but nonetheless it still keeps an air of tension due to the fact that it could easily go bad for the player at any time. battles like this always stay in my mind longer due to the epic feel. Result: Luca Blight will always haunt my nightmares, and I wouldn't have it any other way

Wow! My first ever post! Hope it made sense...

[Badgerthrottle]

I feel like Mother 3 pulled it off well. You receive the Franklin Badge at one point in the game, which deflects lightning. At the end, you run into a masked man you've been rivaling for the entire game, who is actually your twin brother with his mind altered. Your party begins to battle, but he immediately shoots deadly lightning that takes out everyone, except of course his brother, who is wearing his Franklin Badge. The two battle with their father looking on in horror as their dead mom speaks to them from above, driving the story behind the battle. It's an emotional scene that works well.