The Road Not Taken script

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Library of Ruina is an auto-battler. At least, it was, early in development. Hi, I'm Zero, and in this video we'll take a look at Library of Ruina's combat system and how it eventually turned into one of the most unique takes on Turn-Based Combat out there right now. Note that I'll only be giving an overview of the system, refer to my other videos for the details. I'll also be using more generic terminology as much as possible. To make up for the lack of detail, I've added a couple of extras - a bit about the sequel, Limbus Company, and some thoughts about game development.		Library of Ruina (Steam) [ Library of Ruina ] - Alpha version Battle Video
In the Beginning
In order to properly explain how we got here, we must first go back to the beginning, after the full launch of the prequel, Lobotomy Corporation. Now this isn't much of a spoiler as we're already at the 3rd game in the franchise, but LobCorp ends with a very big sequel hook. And so the devs immediately began work on that sequel. Since LobCorp leaned more towards management, it was decided early on that this new game would be more action oriented. The Director mentioned in an interview that he wanted it to be like Uncharted Waters 4, a game whose combat was mostly hands-off and was fun to watch.		Lobotomy Corporation LoR crowdfunding Interview 【5/20発売】『大航海時代IV with パワーアップキット HD Version』PV
This lead to the initial pre-Alpha prototype, an Auto-Battler. From the footage they uploaded to their YouTube channel, this prototype does seem to get the “fun to watch” part right. But you can guess what the team thought about it: it's mobile game-y and doesn't have enough gameplay elements. To address these glaring issues, they started adding more stuff for the player to do, starting with the cards.		Do ProjectMoon Dream of Auto Battle Simulation Game?
The usual (Card Game) stuff
Despite the first line fakeout of this video, I'm sure many viewers who are only vaguely aware of what this game is about still know that this is a card game, whether through quick glimpses of gameplay, or just paying attention to the intro. So let's go with that first, pushing away all the freaky game mechanics to the side for now, and skip straight to the final game and talk about card game stuff that should be familiar to a modern indie gamer. On the surface, there's a lot of overlap with your usual collectible card games like Magic: the Gathering. You get to build a deck for each of your units, which they then get to draw from in combat. Each card has a resource cost, and each unit has limited resources available in order to play their cards. As you might expect, this setup leads to usual card game concepts like mana curves. There's also a booster pack mechanic, which is a bit controversial for this kind of game. Oh and yeah, since it's a single player game, you get to have an idea what the enemies are going to do next.		Slay the Spire
And that's basically the extent of familiar card game elements in Ruina's combat system. Remember, this game wasn't a card game from the start. By having roots in Auto-Battlers, this let the devs experiment with stuff you don't typically see in card games. And oh boy did Project Moon try out some crazy stuff...
Changing the Way Units Deal Damage
You can already see one of those experiments in the initial prototype take note how these two are fighting but aren't taking any damage. There's just a counter going up. If we rewind a bit, we can see them acting like in a normal Auto-Battler. That is, both attack and take damage. But have you stopped to think why, why do we consider this normal? Just taking damage and not doing anything about it? One could say that it's actually realistic, if you get stabbed or shot, you get stabbed or shot. But we're talking about games here, surely, there are more fun and engaging ways to depict combat.		Battlefield V – War in the Pacific Official Trailer
Ultimately, this is a relic from video game's history: many of our games have their roots from tabletop games. And since they predate handheld computers, their combat systems have to be as simple as possible while still trying to simulate potentially complicated situations.		A Quick History of Wargames Pathfinder 2e Combat in 7 Minutes or Less
Those systems were simplified further once they became video games, this time due to screen and input limitations. And this system of attacking and dealing damage just stuck… through the decades.
There have been innovations, but when you think about it, they're mostly just ways to take out enemies faster; the core is still there - one side attacks, other side gets hit.
However, if we look at other media, there's another fun and engaging way to represent combat... Two opposing forces parrying each other's blows until one side overpowers the other. In short, Clashing		JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R – Announcement Trailer DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO – Goku VS Vegeta - Rivals Trailer [BUDOKAI TENKAICHI Series]
And that's what Library of Ruina has settled on as its preferred combat style, all the way to the release. And while you can still choose to tank damage, or find ways to attack without Clashing, most of the game will revolve around setting up the right Clashes for your team. I'm not a game design essayist so I won't dwell on this game-changing paradigm shift for long. If you want to know more, again, link in the description for a guide. I will however, discuss something Clash-related that I don't talk about in that other video…		A Spoiler-Free Guide to Library of Ruina
Removing a Role
Namely, your units don't take as much damage as they would in a normal turn-based game. I mean, what do you expect when your units don't just stand around like dumb-asses taking damage. Less damage leads to a bigger side-effect: Your teams no longer need dedicated healers. No, not in the usual “you wiped out the enemy before they can hurt your party” sort of dea.l I'm talking about long, drawn out battles without any healers. Stop and think about it for a moment: How would party-based combat look like without healers? For one, more time spent on attacking. Gone are the “ok we need to stop attacking this turn and heal up unless we want to die.” We can also replace the dedicated healing abilities with passive effects like Regeneration, or to be more in line with our constant Clashing, triggered effects like Lifesteal. They don't even need to be that strong, what would be a joke in other games can be perfectly viable means of sustaining your team just because they don't take as much damage. This results in another interesting side-effect: when your units do take a lot of damage, battles suddenly become a lot more tense as we removed all those dedicated healing abilities, including revives. I could go on, but I think you got the point. Change something as fundamental as damage dealing, and lots of things will change down the line. And that's gonna be an ongoing theme as we continue this video.
Adding Another Dimension to Combat
Getting back on track... let's return to the Alpha build and see how they originally implemented the card game mechanics. Each turn you get to assign a card to each unit, with each card adding a number of pips to the unit's queue. Each pip represents an attack, or more accurately, a potential Clash. Then at the start of every following turn, the pips are refreshed and you get to assign a new card to the queue, which again adds other pips. This way of playing cards does look odd though it does make a bit more sense in an Auto-Battler sense where multiple actions are expected in the “auto” part of the battle. But some of you may have remembered from earlier - Library of Ruina uses the more familiar resource-based system for playing cards. And in other games of the sort, you could just do the multiple actions part by playing multiple cards as long as you have resources to do so. So, did they switch to this approach?
By the pre-Beta, the answer to that is yes and no. Yes, in the sense that they ditched the part where cards you played in earlier turns stick around. But also “no” because the rest remained mostly intact - you can only play one card per turn (though later on you units can gain multiple slots effectively letting you play more). And more importantly, each card still consists of multiple pips, though now they've become Dice.		[ Library of Ruina ] Battle Video
As if Clashing wasn't radical enough, the devs decided that single actions weren't fun enough, instead taking a cue from fighting and stylish action games and turned combos into a key part of combat.		TEKKEN 8 – Steve Fox Reveal & Gameplay Trailer Devil May Cry 5 - Final Trailer (4K full ver.)
Now you might say, this isn't breaking new ground; lots of cards in other games do multiple things. However, what's different here is that each Die is treated as a separate discrete entity within the queue. Or in bigger picture terms, you aren't playing cards against each other you're pitting the Dice queues. The best way to show this in action is to look the Evade Dice. Most of the other dice work on the concept of “who rolls highest wins, then we move to the next dice”, but Evade is special. If an Evade wins against attacks, not only does the evader not take any damage, the Die is reused, allowing the same Die to dodge multiple attacks. Evade is also a Defensive Die, which means in certain situations, it can be used to defend an incoming attack from a different enemy. These reinforce the fact that ultimately, it's the dice queues that matter, and that the cards are simply vessels for the dice. Anyway, it's time to move on again, so yeah - if you want to know more, details on the other video.
Letting the Player Control the Flow of Combat
For the next update, try to forget what you saw about the pre-Beta and let's return to Alpha yet again… At this point, the devs have added more gameplay since the early prototype. On top of our Clashes, we got our cards, our action queue… but we really haven't solved the main problem with the prototype: it still doesn't feel like the player has that much control over the combat. To be fair, there's already a bit of player choice here if you look closely: units will Clash with the one in front of them so it's all about choosing the right cards to counter the enemy. You could still up the player input though.
For example, other Auto-Battlers let you position your units before the battle, with those close to the front tanking most of the damage. Maybe the devs tried that approach, but unfortunately we don't have any footage of that. Instead, we have hints that they tried the opposite: that is, you can't reposition your team. What could change are their Speed values. As you might guess higher Speed means faster, and faster units will reach the enemies first and start clashing with them. Then you could just have equipment to upgrade their Speed, or cards to change them on the fly.		Despot's Game: Dystopian Battle Simulator
At first glance, it looks like a step forward from the usual pre-wave positioning but compared to the previous version, it's almost a step back. At least in the Alpha you have an idea who's attacking who and you can play cards accordingly, with this setup you're guessing who's going to end up meeting in the middle first.
Alright, I know you didn't forget what you just saw a few minutes ago so you already know how they addressed this problem: by adding a targeting system. Instead of just seeing the enemy's intent, you can also see their targets. They then dialed back on the weirdness with the whole playing cards on your units thing, and went to the more traditional approach of playing cards to target the enemies. Everything we talked about so far stays the same. Playing a card as a response to an incoming attack will end up becoming a Clash. Then there's the Dice queue which you already saw in action earlier. They did, however, give Speed an updated purpose. Faster units can now intercept an attack meant for other units. In other games, interception may just be a nice-to-have gimmick, but in a Clash-focused game, it's almost essential. Without it, the game would be back to the Alpha where you could only respond to incoming attacks and can't choose your units' targets.		Atlus USA Announcement Trailer: Persona 4
With enough fast units, it almost feels like a tactical game where you can position your units in front of enemies, limiting their attacking options, and overall effectively changing the flow of combat.		Disgaea (Steam version)
In practice, however, the tactical analogy fails quickly. For example, when there's a unit under attack by more than 2 enemies at once. This can happen when you don't have enough fast units to balance the clashes, or one team having more members than the other, both of which are fairly common. In this situation, it can be hard to predict which of the attacks will take place first. And as you can see there's yet another complicating factor: Knockbacks. Long story short, you can't be tactical if you can't reliably figure out the action order. Tactical problems aside, the addition of Speed and Interception is still a big deal as we've finally got away from the very passive gameplay of the earlier builds.
The Patch that Changed the Game
A few months into the Early Access, the devs dropped this simple change in the patch notes. Characters with lower Speed values will always wait for the characters with higher Speed values to play out their actions before taking their turn even if they arrive at their targets first.
I admit, I'm one of the many players who didn't really understand what this meant. Looking back, however, this may just be the most important change to the combat system during Early Access. On the surface, all this does is cause some weird UI thing where everything stops except for the fastest unit who then slides towards their target. But let's cut to the chase - remember what I said a minute ago that we can't make tactical decisions unless we can reliably predict the action order? Yeah, this patch basically gives the player that. If previously we can't tell if Roland will attack first, now we know because his Speed is lower. Even with the knockback, he'll have to wait for his turn because of the patch. Of course, this change is more complicated than it looks, but overall, it's just a matter of getting the hang of how things work, and once you do, you should have no problem tactically maneuvering your team through the battlefield. You'd be able to set pre-Clash flanking maneuvers from units that attack first. Conversely, you can also set post-Clash follow-ups or finishers. This is a complicated topic so again I'll leave the rest of the details to my other video.
The gameplay shift comes at a cost, however. By prioritizing the Speed mechanic over the unit positions on the battlefield, the devs have essentially abandoned most of what makes an Auto-Battler an Auto-Battler. The only thing that remains is the hands-off battle processing. Some parts like unit positions survive for other purpose but all that effort implementing the other Auto-Battler elements is now wasted. Then again, that's just part of the creative process, discarding stuff because you choose to go a certain route. And with this patch, Project Moon has decided to turn Library of Ruina into a Turn-Based Tactics game.
A (rather long) digression on Genres and Naming
Despite this, I don't call Library of Ruina a Turn-Based Tactics game anymore. To explain why, let's take a detour and talk about game systems, starting with Turn-Based. Basically players taking turns performing actions. This includes fancier variations like units taking actions in order of initiative. Let's put basic Turn-Based combat here on a graph.		8 Minutes Of Octopath Traveler Gameplay
Next is Final Fantasy's Active Time Battle where the player has to wait for gauges to fill up before getting to act. Depending on the game or user settings this can be closer or farther away from vanilla. Now we can define the axis of our graph, going from left to right increases the amount of "active input" in the game system. And by “active”, we mean things like the player needing to get the timing right, or being able to enter the right amount of inputs at a certain time frame.
Another good example of a system that requires active input would be Turn-based with Quick Time Events. Think Mario RPGs where hitting buttons at the right timing will block or deal more damage. I'll put them here, requiring more or less active input than ATB depending on the the variation.		Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door - Nintendo Direct 9.14.2023
And on the extreme end are non-Turn-Based games: your real time strategies, your action games, and even platformers.		Stormgate Lies of P Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Launch Trailer – Nintendo Switch
Then in this gap are the Real Time With Pause games - these are still not Turn-Based, but adding a pause gives you back one of the main advantages of Turn-Based systems: You have all the time to strategize your next moves.
Now that we've completed this graph, let's digress a bit further and address what some of you may be thinking way back when I talked about Clashing and how most games just stayed with tanking damage rather than innovating, that is: “What about QTE”? Like we already have a sort of Clashing and even a Combo mechanic here, right? And to that I say Do we really need extra inputs from the player for them to happen in game? Surely we can implement them way back here rather than stray this far. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with getting away from the basic Turn-Based formula; it's ultimately a design choice that a developer makes when building their game. But whenever Turn-Based games add active elements to their core gameplay to spice things up, it just feels a bit off for me. Even worse is when some games overdo it to the point that they might as well ditch Turn-Based altogether. Long story short, I prefer games that try to improve Turn-Based Combat within the constraints of the system, or, as we shall see in a bit, at least try to go in a different direction than QTE.		Final Fantasy XIII-2: Enhanced Battle System Trailer Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance - Complete Guide | NSW, PS5/4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Steam, PC
Getting back to the original digression, it's clear from this line that the opposite of Turn-Based is active gameplay. But where do Auto-Battlers and Library of Ruina fit in here? Right around Turn-Based.		Backpack Battles
Obviously, game systems involve more complicated factors than this single line, so let's expand it to one more axis how many units act simultaneously. Instead of being next to it, now these two systems are opposite of basic Turn-Based Combat. Real-Time combat is still farther away, but Turn-Based variations can be closer. And if I had better video editing skills, I'd add a third dimension and axis - “tactical control” - so I could add in Turn-Based Tactics and distinguish Ruina from Auto-Battlers. But let's stick with these two axes and return to the original problem why calling Library of Ruina Turn-Based Tactics isn't enough: namely, they just aren't the same.
Well, it turns out that there's already a well-established distinction between these two: Library of Ruina is a WEGO tactics game. WEGO as in “We Go at the same time”. In contrast, almost every Tactics or vanilla Turn-Based game follow the opposite: IGOUGO that is, “I go first, then you go”. Calling Ruina a WEGO tactics game leads to a different problem, however, as its such a niche subgenre of a subgenre that very few people know about it, which defeats the purpose of assigning a genre to let people know what the game is about.		WeGo (Concept) - Giant Bomb Frozen Synapse
So... we reach the main point of this chapter: What do we call Library of Ruina's combat system then? How about we just go with the marketing material and call it “Library Battle Simulation”? While it's marketable, lore-friendly and all, it shares the same problem as WEGO, anyone reading it will have absolutely no clue what it is all about, possibly negatively affecting their purchasing decision. So what do I call Library of Ruina's system if someone would ask me about it nowadays? It's a Turn-based Clash-focused Combo-driven Hybrid Tactical Auto-Battler Deckbuilding Card Game. Or Hybrid Tactical Auto-Battler Card Game for short. The Hybrid part is key, as it clearly tells the prospective player that it's a mix of genres Project Moon have even started using this description …sort of, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.		Library of Ruina (NSW/PS4 ports)
Anyway, I think this description's good enough for most cases, though it's not quite on the level of other genres. It needs to be more catchy, or even provocative. Here's some that I pulled out of my ass: Alright, digression over.
Lore meets Gameplay
By now you might be thinking that Project Moon must have been going out of their way intentionally breaking every rule in the book. That might just be the case, but I think at least some of them were simply happy accidents. Case in point: the Emotion System. This concept has been around from the start, in the initial crowdfunding details, and even in the Alpha footage. Lore-wise, the Library rewards heightened emotions, regardless if it's positive or negative. In game terms, Positive Emotions can come from stuff like killing an enemy, and Negative can come from the opposite, like bad rolls. Once a unit or a team gets enough Emotions, they're given rewards like full resource refreshes, and other stuff I won't spoil in this video. On the surface, this is a straightforward example of having an initial in-universe concept then adding it into your game.		Library of Ruina Dubbing and OST Production, Tumblbug - Crowdfunding for Creators
The accidental part arises when you consider the Focus-Fire trope, yet another widely accepted thing in video games that most really don't stop to think about. Basically in RTSs and games in general where you control groups of units, it's usually mathematically optimal to focus fire and take out the enemy team one by one. But it's not the case in Library of Ruina; the Emotion System rewards Clashes much more than one-sided attacks. And since those rewards can easily turn the tide of battle, the game clearly doesn't want you to Focus-Fire. Again, I don't know if they intentionally went out of their way to discourage this decades-old trope, though I like to think it's just emergent behavior coming from combining crazy concepts together. I mean, the removal of dedicated healing abilities I mentioned way earlier also discourages Focus-Fire, and that has its own chicken-and-egg scenario.
And that's it for my not-so-quick overview of Library of Ruina's complex combat system. I could continue listing out other stuff they added to the combat but I think you got the point; Library of Ruina chose to take a radically different path compared to other games. Instead, let's talk about something more important:
What are the problems with going down this route?
What are the problems with going down this route? Which is a silly question, especially if we rephrase it as What problems will a small indie developer face if they decide to practically invent a new combat system for their game? I could try to be funny and just answer "All the problems" and call it a day, but that wouldn't be that informative so I'll be going over some of the main problems then call it a day.
Alright, top of the list - UI. No surprise here, we live in a time when you've got bigger more established studios spewing out hideous UI in their games, And that's even when they already had previous UI to work off from. On the other hand, Library of Ruina had to figure out how to combine UI from vastly different genres and make them work. Really how do you do it? Maybe look at some other hybrid games like Fights in Tight Spaces and Midnight Suns? But even then we have to squeeze in the missing parts like the auto-battler and the clashing into UIs already on the verge of being too busy. In short, a non-janky UI would've required a miracle. To be fair, what we ended up with isn't that terrible, especially when you get the hang of the hard parts like how Clashes are assigned, and mentally calculating the order of attacks.		26 Minutes of Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League Gameplay (4K 60FPS) Fights in Tight Spaces - Launch Trailer Marvel's Midnight Suns: The First 28 Minutes of Gameplay
Unfortunately that's the next problem how to make new players get the hang of what's essentially a new type of game. If you've been playing the same games over and over again and have forgotten how long it takes to properly learn a new game system, try learning Chess, Go, or any variation of Poker or Mahjong through a video game, preferably one that isn't a cultural staple where you're from. Better yet, go watch someone doing it. Yeah, it's not as simple as it looks. While it may only take a few minutes to learn the absolute basics, it will take a lot longer for a new player to learn enough to play semi-competently. And I haven't even factored in trying to make a guide for a moving target, changing the tutorial every time you decide to make a major change to the core gameplay.		Chess.com lessons Mahjong Soul
All that said, being in a difficult position doesn't excuse the problems the game has with its onboarding process. The gameplay eventually became stable, and they had all the time to make things better. Beyond the bare minimum walls of text and manual, a game as complicated as this one should at least have an improved in-game manual with animations, extra examples, and possibly a search function. To the Project Moon's credit, they did try to go the extra mile with the tutorial. There's this idea in game design where instead of relying on annoying popups to teach certain parts of a game, one can place players into situations where they can pick the concepts up by themselves, whether consciously or subconsciously. And Library of Ruina does the same with certain stages. At first, it could seem like the game took a big leap in difficulty, but if the player pays attention, they could figure out a game mechanic or two that makes the stage much easier than it initially seemed. Unfortunately, these battles turned out to be too difficult for some players and some of them were nerfed to the point that you can beat them without even learning what they're meant to teach. Oh well, at least they tried.		Factorio Sequelitis - Mega Man Classic vs. Mega Man X
The third problem, you've already saw a chapter on it. And I could continue, but I've already made my point. If any one of these can result in lost sales or even refunds, just imagine having to deal all of them at the same time.
Trying for Free (Limbus Company)
		Limbus Company (Steam)
Differences between LoR and LCB Combat
Traveling this Path (wrap up game design thoughts)
End Screen

Misc.

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