Struggle Mechanics Discussion

[Boxtie]

After playing various H-games, what do you think is the best kind of struggle mechanic when your protagonist is grabbed or restrained?

Methods I've seen so far:

- RNG: Standard in turn-based RPG. You select a "struggle" or "escape" command and the game decides if you escape or not, based on RNG. Sometimes you can "wager" MP or some kind of energy to increase your chances of escape or make it guaranteed at 100%.

- Button mashing: Standard for a lot of action games. Normally, there's a visible meter that you have to deplete or fill up in order to escape your enemy's grasp. Can be tiring or difficult for certain players, especially if their hands are in pain or injured. Some of the game's difficulty hinges on the mashing requirement being so steep that you won't be able to escape unless you mash as fast as possible. There may be button mashing for turn-based RPG but I don't remember any.

- Quick Time Event: Some control commands are displayed on screen and you need to input them correctly under a time limit in order to escape the enemy's grasp. Accidentally pressing the wrong button usually results in an auto-fail. This exists on both turn-based and action, as I have played some examples.

What do you think of these mechanics?
Are there more unique mechanics you've seen before?

 

[Tenma]

QTE would be the best if a h-game developer could just implement them like they're used in Heavy Rain or Detroit become human. If you fail you don't immediately lose however if you fail critical moment your PC does get restrained and you need to complete a QTE to escape or lose. This'd have the advantage of having several variants per scene, a con would be the need to program various of unclothing or wounds to the character being restrained. A neutral result would be that if the player is good at completing QTEs than the game might be easy unless something can be done increase the difficulty of the QTE. For example in the case of hypnotism or magical seduction a false button prompt may pop-up and you would need to ignore this or you'd be put into a worse situation.

As for RNG, typically the gambles rarely pay off and you'll be better off just taking the guaranteed escape and as button-mashing. That could be integrated into the QTE style. It can be somewhat interesting if the mashing required scales with your characters health or status. Even falsely allowing a player to attempt to struggle out after their health is completely gone.

 

[TheUnsaid]

Whatever MoGi origins has is really good.

A slider that moves left and right. Hitting the button when it's at a region in the center gets you out. Or for other games, gives you points that builds towards you getting out.

This allows you to stay on the sex scene for as long as you want. You can watch the scene at your pace if you want to. Escaping is about timing. There are tons of modifiable variables you can have to escape. How fast does the slider move? How big is the center? This is a minigame that can get too difficult to finish as well so there's actual tension in losing.

 

[Tenma]

As a player, MoGi Origin's slider minigame isn't too fun. You deplete your health bar and it gets faster and harder without limit. This leads into a situation where if you haven't been to safe point, where the easiest enemy can chip off whatever little health you get back from succeeding at the minigame and then finish you off in one sweep.

 

[TheUnsaid]

As a player, MoGi Origin's slider minigame isn't too fun. You deplete your health bar and it gets faster and harder without limit. This leads into a situation where if you haven't been to safe point, where the easiest enemy can chip off whatever little health you get back from succeeding at the minigame and then finish you off in one sweep.

Seems like it's actually possible to get raped to death then.
Unlike most struggle systems without a sense of danger I prefer it, if you're actually punished for playing badly.

 

[Tenma]

It would still be preferable if there were a cap for the lowly enemies. Such as a limit to how fast the arrow could go and how small the success area could become.

 

[Triplebrc]

Most struggle mechanics only know fully restrained or completely free, which is a damn shame because it limits the possibilities so much. I have most commonly seen the struggle button, which either works with rng or is guaranteed to work after pressing it a certain times in turn based combat. QTE are not as common, but also make appearances, more commonly in pixel games and generally in games that prefer animations. The button mashing is the least common in my experience, and I am glad about that because few things are as annoying as having to spam a button every few seconds.

Personally I liked Minwas approach the best so far, considering the distance between the enemy and yourself, adding things like seduction and charm, stamina, and if the enemy gets on top of you you enter a different combat stance with a focus on getting the enemy off of you instead of gaining distance.

If once made a rough blueprint of how a struggle system would look like if I ever were tasked to design one, but I highly doubt anything will ever come of it, because this is something that gets just crammed in instead of making it a big part of the game.

 

[TheUnsaid]

Most struggle mechanics only know fully restrained or completely free, which is a damn shame because it limits the possibilities so much. I have most commonly seen the struggle button, which either works with rng or is guaranteed to work after pressing it a certain times in turn based combat. QTE are not as common, but also make appearances, more commonly in pixel games and generally in games that prefer animations. The button mashing is the least common in my experience, and I am glad about that because few things are as annoying as having to spam a button every few seconds.

Personally I liked Minwas approach the best so far, considering the distance between the enemy and yourself, adding things like seduction and charm, stamina, and if the enemy gets on top of you you enter a different combat stance with a focus on getting the enemy off of you instead of gaining distance.

If once made a rough blueprint of how a struggle system would look like if I ever were tasked to design one, but I highly doubt anything will ever come of it, because this is something that gets just crammed in instead of making it a big part of the game.

I feel like instead of being a struggle mechanic it's the entire game in minwa's approach.
I think there's a difference between it being a simple mechanic and a core part of the combat design.

It would still be preferable if there were a cap for the lowly enemies. Such as a limit to how fast the arrow could go and how small the success area could become.

I think making it so it's possible to completely fail is it's strong suit as it actually feels like a reverse rape game if you fuck up enough.

 

[Tenma]

I feel as though there needs to be a game that's focused on the struggle mechanic. Enokifupu's is a bit interesting in that there can be an implied struggle in the dialogue and alternative methods for the enemies to interfere with Botan outside of grab and wrestle into fucking. Which is H-games really need to innovate on.

 

[Boxtie]

a con would be the need to program various of unclothing or wounds to the character being restrained.

Being a bondage fan, I was thinking more along the lines of "different levels of restraint", like how hands are tied first which limits your attacks to kicks, followed by legs tied, which further limits attacking and mobility and so on.
I will probably regret it but I'd like to try and draw/animate all these states.

 

[Tenma]

This what I am talking about. In my H-game, you'd get QTEs to attack and defend. Using QTEs to attack, you'd get attacks in certain intervals to prevent fights from ending too quickly, in the case of bosses or to allow mobs an opportunity to attack. If you got hit then the prompts showing the inputs would become more shaky and have a narrower time limit to input. Sort of like WWE wrestling game. As for status effects like bondage I could imagine requiring the player hold down more buttons while mashing to simulate trying to shake off the bonds. This would be possible to an extent and you could always struggle to prevent more bonds from beings applied. However, get too bound up and you essentially lose the fight, though may continue to struggle fruitlessly against the shackles or belts

 

[Boxtie]

If you got hit then the prompts showing the inputs would become more shaky and have a narrower time limit to input.

I only thought about the time limit reduction (depending on how much HP/energy/etc. you have left).

I didn't think about "interface screw".

 

[Fenril]

Something I like but don't see too often in RPGM games is when enemies use H-attacks which are essentially status effects. Those status effects generally cause MP damage and/or limit your range of attacks and are generally removed with items/abilities but you can choose to leave them on. Sometimes they even carry over after battle but otherwise they make fights harder. Tale of Undercrust and Magic Fist Sara are examples of this.

 

[Tenma]

I didn't think about "interface screw".

This is what I am talking about, a struggle could be more than press a button when displayed. A real time struggle could portray a characters status. How does simply pressing arrows or keys in sequence represent a struggle. The actions might represent the character thinking or wrestling their way out of the situation. Though having to hold a key, would represent the character straining against a hold, then pressing a key would represent taking an action while holding back a oppressive force. Of course if you failed at any point during this, you would fail the action. A lot of game developers just want a functional product, though this comes at the cost of creativity and really fun as well. There's really not a lot of 'fun' H-games if you've have had your fill of battle fuck RPGs, RPGs in general, and visual novels.

 

[TheUnsaid]

This is what I am talking about, a struggle could be more than press a button when displayed. A real time struggle could portray a characters status. How does simply pressing arrows or keys in sequence represent a struggle. The actions might represent the character thinking or wrestling their way out of the situation. Though having to hold a key, would represent the character straining against a hold, then pressing a key would represent taking an action while holding back a oppressive force. Of course if you failed at any point during this, you would fail the action. A lot of game developers just want a functional product, though this comes at the cost of creativity and really fun as well. There's really not a lot of 'fun' H-games if you've have had your fill of battle fuck RPGs, RPGs in general, and visual novels.

Depends on what the developer wants out of the struggle system.

Is it meant to stay on screen for like 2 seconds, or is it meant to be a battle that takes 30-45 seconds to escape. I feel like a lot of struggle systems operate under the assumption that it's supposed to be a short struggle until escape. That's just what the developers want.

 

[Tenma]

I think a lot of game designers and animators don't find something so complex as an obtainable goal. When you'd get into coding in such behaviors, get to animating several different models and different animation sets for a partially bonded up playable character in various combinations. Then finally getting into the actual erotic animations taking into account the aforementioned factors.

 

[takeba]

Nice to see people with similar tastes in a game mechanic. Just a shame that there aren't very many games out there (at least that I know of) with something like that or that they're just so basic in nature that it just makes me think "what's the point in even having it?"

Only a few come to mind that I've played recently that I wish could combine everything into one. The layered restraint system of "Emblem Knightess Nord ~The Mark of Lewdness~", having restraints stay if you somehow win the fight or run away like in "Cursed Armor", and a QTE system like "Rei, The Drifter Girl", but with more of a challenge.

I do like Tenma's idea for a struggle mechanic though. Only unfortunate thing is that it adds to the complexity of coding it which I'm sure not a lot of h-game devs wants to waste their time with. Just give people what they want (lewds) and profit from it.

Anyone know of any games that have a good restraint/stuggle system in it?

 

[Tenma]

Really, no. As mentioned, there's 3 systems with various levels of various level of window dressing to pretty them up. Button mashing to escape, QTE in various forms, and RNG to escape. A combination of the 3 combined with a more dynamic system would a decent h-game struggle system, however that doesn't seem to be priority in the h-game scene. The biggest erotic game production, Subverse, looks like it's go with the bare minimal win and get a h-scene that the most basic of erotic games have.

 

[Tenma]

Anyone know of any games that have a good restraint/stuggle system in it?

Actually, there maybe one circle that produces games with a somewhat good restraint system. 305 Labo or 305開発部, has one game where circles pop up and you have a close though not impossible opportunity to get all of the inputs in. There's even a rhythm like input you have to do.

 

[Boxtie]

The struggle mechanics in the game I am illustrating for is strictly for "imprisonment" scenes and not during turn-based combat.

It uses "Quick Time Event" type of prompt but the arrows are placed around the character, so you can recognize the prompt easier and not having a tunnel-vision issue when you're looking at which button to press. This also allows you to look at the girl's struggles easier than if the prompts are located near the bottom of the screen.