not this topic making me realize everything i love is just high-effort rock paper scissors

anyways big fan of rock paper scissors 1 (pokemon, good old fire beats grass beats water), 2 (fire emblem, axe beats lance beats sword), and 3 (magical starsign, which had five elements that could counter each other in a loop and a bunch of other fun "tap at the right moment during the animation" nonsense like reflex guard and spell strike, and also a whole planetary alignment system)... i also love rock paper scissors 4, but that's not turn based (dragalia lost).

i guess i miss playing magical starsign more than i thought. gotta hunt down the nintendo ds after i get caught up on subeta battles :v

[edit] also gotta say the best part of systems like pokemon and fire emblem (particularly heroes) is getting your team geared up well enough to beat the type advantage/weapon triangle disadvantage and blow everything up. the best part of systems like dragalia lost is producing some kind of exodia-style game breaking nonsense and blowing everything up. the best part of magical starsign's nonsense was timing your tap for a successful spellstrike and also lining up all the planets to blow everything up.

hello yes i am a garbage person that absolutely loves low-effort steamroll strategy, that's why i chain-freeze :)

I love Dragonfable. It has lots of levels, you're able to customize your characters, choose among dozens of story lines, and purchase neat weapons according to your class (mage, rogue, adventurer, warrior).

Older Pokemon games and original Final Fantasy (and their remakes/versions for Gameboy). The original Dragon Quest on Nintendo.There was a turn based Dragon Age retro style game I played the hell out of a few years ago. Pokemon Go, though fun was greatly diminished when they added the stupid bubble pop mini game to power attack and just way too many Pokemon to remember at the same time the meta game got ever tighter with people only using a handful of Pokemons per difficulty level.

I played Final Fantasy. (The early ones)

I love the Pokemon games, Final Fantasy, Legend of Dragoon and I still think Golden Sun (espcially its sequal, The Lost Age) is one of the best games ever made. But you're asking this to get ideas to tweak the Subeta Battle system, right? It's difficult because I love those games partly because of the story, the characters and puzzles, and Subeta has none of that. So maybe I'll go with Persona 5 instead. Unlike Pokemon, Final Fantasy and Golden Sun, I couldn't outlevel the enemies by grinding in Persona 5. For every turn you need to think carefully what to do, and if you make a mistake, you get stomped. It kept me on edge, even though you had all the time in the world to decide your next move.

Eternal Sonata and Grandia had interesting battle systems too.

Edit: I've heard good things about the Trails series (Trails of Cold steel etc), and the Atelier series, but I haven't gotten around to try them out yet, so I can't really comment on those. But I kind of like it when you can manipulate battles to get extra turns or to delay the turns of your enemies. The UI from FFX comes to mind, where you can clearly see who's going to have their turn when, and how certain moves affect the turn order. The baton passes after hitting a weakness in Persona 5 come to mind, and I think some of the Atelier games have this mechanic too. The Legend of Dragoon has this interesting mechanic where you heal yourself a little bit (10% of max hp) if you take a turn to defend. This was offset by having a very limited inventory for consumable items. You could only carry 32 consumables, which includes healing, revival, mp-recovering, damaging etc items. So if you're stuck in a dungeon and want to keep some healing items for the upcoming boss fight, you were forced to heal yourself in battle while defending. It was the very first RPG that I played, so I might be a bit biased, so I'm not sure if a system like this would become very tedious after a while.

I love Divinity Original Sin 2's turn based combat a lot. It's an RPG, so there's obviously a lot of options for skills and stating. But what I really love is the complexity of the elements/combo field system. There's so many fun options to experiment with and I find it really changes how I choose to attack (don't want to use a big shock attack when I'm standing in a water field for instance!). Having to react to opponents potentially changing combo fields under my/their feet is an added layer of strategy and complexity that I enjoyed in that game.

Have enjoyed Slay the Spire's card combat. The deckbuilding is fun, as is being at the mercy of how the deck gets shuffled. Might pick it back up again now that you mention it. :P

Pokemon and Magic.

(Also a lot of the Pokemon games do have pretty decent AI in the postgame content.)

I've played the majority of the Final Fantasy games. Although FFX was nowhere near my favourite, I really liked the in-battle battle system. It was clear what everyone's strengths were and who to pull in to battle/what moves would be best. I liked that it had a little schedule of whose turn would be coming up in the corner and would tell you how your planned move would affect this. I liked that with a well planned battle, all the team could get exp.

Pokemon wise, I only ever played Pokemon Pearl. I don't really remember it well enough to give any feedback on it although I wasn't keen that you would replace Pokemon that you'd worked hard on as you got better Pokemon.

Pokemon. I play a RIDICULOUS amount of pokemon. I love it. I've been playing since I was little and now I like doing stuff like taking a stage 1 starter all the way to the champion and ruining their day with them. <3

AND. Persona. Specifically Persona 4. I love the turn based battling, it forces me to think if a move is worth a risk or not. I have a whole team and I have to use them all effectively or it's over. Getting to mix and match my members is also really awesome.

I love love love slay the spire. I love that you have different character builds with vastly different decks you can create based on play style.

I used to play Chrono cross and pokemon back in the day, but my favorite turn based game used to be a game called eternal eyes that probably no one has heard of. In eternal eyes, you have these puppets you use gems on to form monsters. You get different monsters and evolutions of monsters depending on the gem combination. Battle was turn based and distance based on a map. Some attacks were long ranged or bomb types that could hit multiple squares or multiple enemies.

Paper Mario was always my favorite turn based game. I was SO excited that the original is now on Nintendo Switch online with the membership.

Pokemon relies on more than just the usual type interaction, it can get pretty complicated actually! I haven't played anything out of Gen 8 yet, but I have heard in BDSP they made the Elite 4 and Cynthia super competent. But yeah, otherwise, the AI has been...eh? It's better than it used to be, but yeah. The devs are trying to get more people into the competitive side of Pokemon, so they did make the post-game stuff with gym leader rematches to have way more competent team synergy. It's still fairly easy though to play if you go in absolutely knowing nothing on IVs, EVs, how to run a Pokemon with its stat spread and movepool, so on and so on. to purposely make sure the games maintain some semblance of challenge, I do nuzlockes, so perma-death if a Pokemon faints in battle, no items used in battle, limited catching of Pokemon, etc.

As for other turn-based games, I loved Resonance of Fate, an underrated niche RPG with a unique battle system. It's very action-oriented. I'd recommend checking out a video playthrough of the game on Youtube to see what I mean. I'm not great at words. xD

Fire Emblem is more tactical strategy, Final Fantasy has shifted away from turn-based to more action. Tales of series is also action-based instead of turn-based. Dark Souls is a hybrid RPG (but it sounds like there's some influence from this in the latest weapon sorting 👀 ). The only other turn-based RPG I can think of that I enjoyed a lot was Golden Sun. It was fairly simple.

There's one idea I thought about and I don't know if it is possible to implement, but since many of us do have armies, wouldn't it be cool to have a select number of pets fight a boss at the same time? Make it a real turn-based RPG then! You can have a pet dedicated to healing your best attacker, someone to set up a curse, make someone defend completely on a turn. It could be a lot of fun! It's a random idea I thought of, but no idea if it's doable at any point. And it would be limited to just boss battles. But it could make for a fun competition to see which user's army can do the most damage output for example.

tries to think of all the Turn-Based RPGS games that I've played

In no particular order: Final Fantasy 4, 6, 7 (original), and 9, Chrono Trigger, Paper Mario saga (most recently played The Origami King), Super Mario RPG Legend of the 7 Stars, Dragon quest XI, Persona 5/P5 Royal, Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE Encore, The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 1-4, Blue Dragon, Bravely Default, Bravely Default II, Octopath Traveler, Bonds in the Sky.

Cris Tales I also played but only a little bit... still it was really good :D

I haven't yet played Shin Megami Tensei V and Pokemon: Arceus, so cannot yet comment on those XD

You can also tell that I love playing RPG games, Turn-Based RPGS more than Non-turn based RPG :P

Of all these, my favorite gameplays are:

1. Super Mario RPG Legend of the 7 Stars & Paper Mario: The Origami King: (because you need to time your hits to do extra damage; I find this dynamic quite fun)
2. Octopath Traveler: because you need to find the enemies' weakness with either a weapon type or magic, before you can break them. (this video explains the battle dynamic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OG4nNJYZeE). I also love the boosting option to "borrow' more attacks per turn, but not attacking for a number of borrowed turnes.
3. Bravely Default & BD 2: the Bravely and Default battle system works similar to the Octopath Traveler boosting!
4. Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE Encore: has a "sessions" system in battle that allows the cast to link their attacks for extra damage.
5. Persona 5/P5 Royal: you can combat "shadows" (enemies) directly, or stealthily ambush them before the battle begins, and then while battling you can attack with a weapon, or use your persona's skills. When you strike a vulnerability, you have the option of "baton pass" which allows a team-mate to make another attack, or make the next attack yourself (the baton pass is unlocked by increasing your affinity with team-mates), and then there's the "all out attack" that you can activate when enemies are all down. (this video explains the battle dynamic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl3elI7hqRM).

Hope it helps !

I uhh, hhhuuu, pokemon (haven't actually started Arceus yet but I'm working on getting there) and... Animal crossing which doesn't have a battle aspect unless you count where I think I'm pointing vs. where the game thinks I'm pointing while terraforming (actually that is both a battle and a struggle, just not one I think helps in context).

But I actually got drunk once and turned the pokemon tcg energy cards into a Uno/RPS game so I guess that explains where my life is at.

Anyways, does pogo count as a different game? Overall I don't have a lot of nice things to say about Niantic and their wizards of smart ideas these days BUT depending on where this thread/thinking is going the concept of raids could easily translate into a game like subeta.

Very very easily, actually, assuming the programming ability to create mini boss-battles(*) either public and/or private (**) was a route the site wanted to go. I made a small list without even thinking.

(* I think that's how the boss battles work on sub, at least behind the scenes? Like we're all technically battling the hydra even if we're only seeing the snapshot of our individual fight, right?)

(** If you've played pogo, you know there's always those two people with 4-8 phones between them who go private. Sometimes to see if they can do it alone and sometimes it's because their shiny hunting and must speedrun. Also max rewards. Anyways, there's always a reason for private and public raids.)

(One ride, four people, 11 phones. I think our max was 20 something raids in a three hour block 🙃🙃🙃... which is quite a lot in the suburbs.)

Just FYI: I can't play any games online that are not turn based. The narcolepsy means I can fall asleep at any time. Plus, I've never had those things.... Whaddya call 'em? Oh yeah... Reflexes. The games I play the most have already been mentioned except for the Dragon Age series which is not technically turn based, but you can pause whenever you want. It ends up (for me) the same as turn based.

Aside from disabilities, there also was Motherhood. That prohibits any sort of gameplay you can't just suddenly walk away from for who knows how long. Any parent knows the sounds of THERE WILL BE BLOOD -- or at least another trip to the ER.

Last, but not least: pets. One of my ferrets used to traipse across the keyboard and pay all of my taxes to the mother country any time I played Conquest of the New World. It must've been a developer hot key combo because I never found it and I was never able to replicate it. My point (it's in here somewhere) is that for anyone who has RL pets that can reach the computer, turn based fighting limits the damage they can do.

Been there, done that. Got two shiny Moltres and no perfects. Not even any really good ones. LOL (So if you ever wanna trade...) And the group I usually raid with does private otherwise our members get shut out. Really frustrating when your group is raiding in New Zealand. Lived in a small town until recently where you couldn't even get 4 people together for a raid. Hoping it'll be better this summer now that I have (moved) rejoined civilization. If you can get people together for raiding, see my profile page.

Put me down as yet another person who loves Pokemon, though I was kind of a latecomer. The first one I actually bought was X, though before that I'd tried LeafGreen and Emerald via rom. Nowadays I just play the hell out of Sun, because I don't have a Switch and am not willing to plunk down hundreds of dollars for a console I'm only going to play one kind of game on, and I'm one of those weirdos who only has a phone for phone purposes.

Anyway, my thing in Pokemon right now is trying to find little additions to the basic strategy of "hit opponent with whatever they're weak to." Spikes, Toxic, Taunt, that kind of thing. I also did a lot of breeding for IVs and natures before realizing, hey, this is kind of pointless for me because I don't play competitively. XD (I've tried, and it was really fun even when I lost, but...idk these days I'd rather play with friends instead of randos, and most of my friends are into other games now)

Other turn-based games I've loved: Super Mario RPG, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy (4,6,7,10...yes I said 10, I don't care, go ahead and shoot me)(never played 10-2 though)

I'm guessing this question is being asked in order to get a read on what mechanics are in the games we prefer, and that's fine. But if I could offer another angle?

The games I listed above...what I really liked about them more than anything? What stayed with me more than anything? The story and the characters. Geno. Terra. Luca and Robo. Cecil, Rosa, and Kain.

Now, how does Subeta use that? Y'all already have, a bit. I know Subeta staff's been screamed at a lot lately for things they've done wrong, now here's something they did right: fleshing out and redesigning their NPCs. I remember back when they all had the same boring anime face and very little personality to speak of. Now they have different builds, accents, facial features, jobs, orientations, pronouns, basic personalities - things we can identify with and care about.

I'm coming back to battling, I promise. Bear with me.

Remember all those Cash Shop opponents from last year, and how they were tied to the NPCs? Remember all the speculation on who the mystery antagonist was, even from people who didn't normally battle all that much? (Has that ended yet, btw? I haven't been on Subeta a whole lot lately and probably missed a whole lot of news) Then there was the year all the battle opponents were based on characters' fears? Or even the janky magical food experiments of the Wizard's? I liked the ideas behind all of those, even if I couldn't always participate. imho it was a move in the right direction as far as making battling more interesting.

And while it's absolutely not feasible to have plots all the time (nor should we), I do find it interesting that suddenly battling is a lot more fun to a lot more people during one. Granted, a lot of that is probably due to prizes as an incentive, but also because during plots there's more of a focus and a specific, usually story-based reason we're doing all this battling, that makes it more than just mindless clicking.

I'll be honest, I don't know how to tap into that for everyday battling. I'm just putting lore out there as a consideration, and the reason I'm doing that is because it's been stated time and again that Subeta is a website on a tight budget and few staff members. They may not have the resources to quickly overhaul an old battling system, or put in the animations and graphics like all those other games listed have. But making characters interesting and creating story around them doesn't require a lot of money or specific skills.

I'm not saying it's easy, by the way. I've tried writing before and I have friends who are writers, I know damn well it's difficult to do. But it's something that can be done that could be well worth it. I'm also not saying ignore the battling mechanics entirely. People with better knowledge of the battle system than I do have come up with all kinds of ways to improve it, and their ideas should be considered first and foremost. I'm just saying, people have complained about battling being boring, here's one possible way to help it not be so boring.

Don't know if this ramble was exactly what was being looked for, but here it is.

I play competitive Pokemon. It gets really complicate to the point I can sit you down and talk about it for days. Not to mention, preparing your Pokemon for optimal stats is very hard and grindy in real game, even it is nothing in Smogon Showdown Simulator.

This is not a system that is good for a progression based web browser game (Creating one good better pets already takes years, let alone 6 good pets)

In my opinion, just rebalance weapons. Right now it is about getting a hold of very few specific weapons that are the best, or the budget option for their tier. Make weapons becomes side grade, saved for few straight upgrades.

Torn City PvP is interesting. With Speed determining accuracy, while Dexterity determine dodge chance. But lower level Player will basically can't touch sufficiently higher level player at all.

Edit: Torn CIty training system will offer 2 stat gain multiplier. First being the different level gym has tier, and as you gain more stat, you unlock better gym with better multiplier. And Happiness.

I don’t play many video games so I’m not sure what strictly counts as turn-based, but I love the battle mechanic in Kingdom Hearts series (KH2 and KH3).

Enemies have set of attacks that are randomly chosen from. They typically hit back after you do a few combos or if the timer runs out; you have a limited amount of time to attack them before they attack you back. Their attacks also have cues though, so you know when they’re about to attack and which move they’re about to do so you can counter it appropriately.

Some enemies will attack more often the more damage you do. For instance, at first they will only attack once before you have a chance to attack them, but after whittling down their health, they can attack two or even three times in a row before it’s your turn. But, if you time it right, you can also stop their attacks mid-combo and attack them. It’s a really fun system!

Your weapons and armor can also grant you different abilities in battle, but I think that is fairly typical for any battle system.

Pokemon and Persona! Personally, I don't have the patience for carefully positioning characters around the screen like in Fire Emblem. Honestly, I love everything about Fire Emblem EXCEPT that part. I can only imagine it would be so much worse on a game that runs anything less than lightning-fast. I can't imagine waiting to move each individual character on a browser game that has a slight loading time.