u/Sea_Fill1602

I’m working on a gacha-style tactics game inspired by games like Final Fantasy Tactics, and I’m curious what tactics/strategy players think about auto-battle systems.

I’m not trying to promote the game—it’s still very far from release. I’m mainly looking for opinions from people who actually play tactics games.

The basic idea is that you build and train your team, choose their classes and equipment, and then send them into battle. Once combat starts, your characters control themselves. The player can’t directly move or control individual characters.

Instead, the player has a limited Command system that lets you influence the fight. You might order someone to focus on a particular enemy, tell the party to retreat or regroup, direct someone toward an objective, or use certain player abilities/spells to help them. But ultimately, your characters have to fight and survive on their own.

My main question is:

What makes an auto-battler interesting to watch and interact with?

For example, would you rather:

- Have smarter AI tied to stronger/advanced classes, so characters become better at making decisions as they progress?

- Have every class possess a distinct AI personality/playstyle? For example, Knights naturally protect allies, Assassins aggressively hunt vulnerable backline enemies, Archers try to maintain distance, and Berserkers take dangerous risks for damage.

- Have individual characters develop their own tendencies or behaviors over time?

- Have some combination of these systems?

My overall goal is to make the characters feel as alive and independent as possible. I want sending your party into a mission to feel almost like watching a little show where you’re rooting for characters you trained and equipped, while occasionally using commands to try to influence what happens.

There would also be real consequences for failure. If a character dies, you lose the level and gear and need to bring that character back up to max level and get them new gear (concept pending)

For people who enjoy tactics games or auto-battlers: what would make you feel attached to these characters, and what would make watching them fight on their own actually fun instead of feeling like you’re just watching the game play itself?

I am looking to work on a virtual pet game my goal right now is create maybe 6 eggs each one has 1-3 hatch options and each of these creatures that come out can evolve 2 times so you get a Baby - Child - Adult (Names will change as I go but you get the idea)
I want to know what the community thinks of virtual pets and what they love to see/hate to see

1. Evolution YES/NO

2. Raid YES/NO

3. Seasonal events YES/NO

4. Idle dungeon YES/NO

5. Online and offline PVP YES/NO

6. Perma death to encourage growing new creatures YES/NO

There are some things I will have no matter what: training, feeding, care, sleep mode, maybe even do something like a freeze mode where you can store them and take a break. But the other concepts I want to know where people stand on them. I want to avoid anything like in-app purchases I think my goal is to create an Ads option in the menu, where you can go watch an ad to support the game, maybe even do some cosmetics or something like a "base" customization option but I wanna avoid anything that leads to P2W mechanics. I also think I will do a PvP system and raid for sure, but if people don't like them, my question would be why, and what could I do to make it more appealing? The game would be exclusively on the phone and if it does well (few hundread players) I would add more creatures to grow and do the seasonal events. An example would be Christmas eggs that hatch unique versions of the creatures with holiday-themed hats or clothes. Thoughts?

I'm working on a visual novel creature-capture game, and I'm stuck on one of the combat mechanics. I'm the only one on my team who really plays creature collectors, so I'd love to get some feedback from the community if that's okay.

The idea is a 3-partner combat system where you only bring three creatures into battle. Instead of each creature having its own HP bar, there's a single HP bar that's tied to you, the player.

Your lead partner is the one taking actions, while the other two stay on the bench until you swap them in. If one creature uses a healing move, your shared HP is restored. If a creature grants a shield or an attack buff, the entire party benefits because those effects are applied to the shared HP/resource pool rather than to an individual creature.

Your partners don't faint individually. As long as you still have HP remaining, you can continue switching between all three creatures. Once your shared HP reaches zero, you lose the battle and either get a Game Over or return to the last save point.

The idea is similar to a computer battery. Even if your laptop is at 1% battery, you still have access to all of your programs and files until the battery actually dies.

What do you think of a combat system like this? Does it sound interesting, or do you see any major flaws or balance issues? Is there anything you would change or improve?

I see a lot of people say they hate AI and whoever uses it should do this, that, and the other. My question is, what do people who hate AI think about people creating art with it, then asking real artists to clean it up or use it as reference material?

Hey folks, I am working on a creature capture game right now, but I want to do a narrative story instead of an open-world walk-around kind of thing.
My goal is for you to load up the game and have a quick run-through on who the MC is before you pan over to a screen where you have a background of the environment and a portrait image of the MC pops up where they are talking to themselves (the player) and then having a dialogue with NPC about the story and from time to time it transitions into battles with the creatures before going back to story telling.
Would my game be considered a Visual Novel, or is that something different?

Hey folks, I’m currently working on a creature-capture card combat game. The main idea is that players capture creatures, and each creature has access to unique decks based on its typing. Right now, I have 12 different types planned, and my goal is to eventually have at least 50 cards per type, with more added later through expansions or DLC alongside new creatures. One thing I’ve been holding off on is the actual card-balancing side of development. I’ve played games like Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic, Duel Masters, etc., so I’m familiar with card combat systems, but I know balancing is going to be one of the biggest challenges.

Does anyone have advice on good online guides, videos, examples to study, or general tips on things I should pay attention to or avoid? My overall goal is for combat to be somewhat similar to Slay the Spire, but I’ve also been considering giving each creature its own passive traits or stat modifiers so that certain cards and playstyles work better with specific creatures. For example: “This creature gets a 5% bonus to all healing cards.”

This will be my first game, so I know it’s a huge project, but I’m okay with it taking a few years to build properly. I’m close to finishing most of the character designs and am currently working on story development, so I’m not in a rush. Any advice would really be appreciated.