Is combat required to hold the interest of someone playing an RPG Maker MV game?

[Wiskersthefif]

Hello everyone.
So I spent about an hour putting together a little origin story for a character I am working on (Warning:Horror aspects.... link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qIGcaLmm6TXCjlTY0nbKEOUrAbZ7o87qplcsaKqOCFM/edit?usp=sharing), which got me to wondering: Is combat required to hold the attention of someone playing an RPG Maker MV game?

I was planning on creating a horror/adventure story centered around a now adult Nathan, who has developed a drug addiction, and the support group for people with destructive behavior which he has been mandated to attend (some mandated to be there, some not). His group is about to graduate from the support group and be declared "fit to rejoin society", and as a reward the group councilor takes the support group to a quiet mountain town for a relaxing vacation kind of thing. However, the counselor actually plans to use the cursed ground of the town to damn the support group to a kind a parallel dimension, a nightmarish version of the town from which they supposedly cannot escape. The characters will learn from other people trapped there (a WWII veteran, a hippie from the sixties, etc) that time passes much slower in this dimension and that the counselor has been doing this for about seventy years, suggesting that he might not be human. The characters would quickly learn that they are not alone in this world (ghosts of others who had died there, monsters, the possibility that some of the other prisoners have long since lost their sanity, and other threats), and that they are trapped. The remainder of the game would be about members of the support group trying to figure out how to escape, about the history/lore of the town, and how far they are willing to go to survive.

Now, the question: Should I just focus on exploring themes, building character, possibly looking for some starving voice actors, musicians, and artists to build the atmosphere? Or should I get to work on implementing some kind of combat system, a possible idea would be allowing characters to bind the spirits (of the ghosts and monsters) to totems (personal objects of the character), allowing them to have different abilities....Think "Pokemon" or "Nocturne".

Thank you for reading, I apologize for the sloppy plot line, it is extremely conceptual right now; and if I decide to go forward I will fill in any plot holes and will flesh out the characters/universe. Additional question: do you guys like the concept of the story?

 

[legendreef1]

okay story.
I think outline more important to focus on ..... like amber throne has story
but also has combat that makes sense with the story I think that how it figures;p

 

[Micro]

as to your first question: I don't think so at all. especially for a survival/horror game. look at a game like Lone Survivor... that one has entirely optional combat (you're actually encouraged not to partake in combat)

so no, you don't have to have combat, but if you're going for a horror theme you will definitely need to have a very captivating environment/atmosphere to get people immersed into your story. if you dont want to have combat, you should weave a story that supports that--discourages you from fighting for whatever reason.

it can totally work as long as you have an interesting story and keep the player busy with things like avoiding enemies, collecting key items, unraveling the general mysteries of your plot

I like your concept, it has enough there to be truly interesting IMO and you can probably avoid combat if you make it flow well.

it is probably too early in development to fret over what the community thinks, you should just try to get it started and work on it a bit, flesh out your story more and decide where you want to go. just have fun with it and see how well everything fits together.

i say this because i think that if done well, people welcome something different. it's always refreshing to see someone create something that a bit more unique in the gaming genre, and I can always appreciate new ideas.

there are so many people out there, you'll always have a crowd interested in your stuff :) I for one am looking forward to seeing a game with no combat.

I feel that a lot of games *coughFF13cough* use combat as a crutch to inflate your game time and it can get very frustrating when it's overly grindy...so yeah! enough rambling out of me XD you have my support

anyways good luck, I'll be looking forward to seeing what you decide to do with your ideas :)

 

[Companion Wulf]

I really like the concept of your game. It's the kind that you would expect to have combat, but it'd be refreshing for it not to. You have enough conceptual possibility here to make an immersive game. The key for developing this into a non-combat game would be environment and character development. I like games/novels where you're pretty much introduced to characters you really know nothing about and their personalities and various traits, skills, etc. develop over time. Each character has the potential to become a hero or a sociopath, depending on what happens around them.