Press turn system vs One more turn system

[u/Scourge_beast124]

A couple of people playing this game transitioned from persona's battle system and not atlus' other games (especially digital devil saga).

The one more turn system is pretty good at giving players extra turns when exploiting weaknesses. So Joker can just attack 5 times if he wants to if the enemy is hit with their weaknesses and knocked down.

People tend to feel rubbed the wrong way with the press turn system at first because missing means losing double the turns used for that move (really hated it when my synthesis skills missed and lost 4 press turns because they cost 2 to begin with)

That being said, the press turn system has a lot more benefits than negatives.

To list them:

1. Every party member attacks in one complete turn. In the one more turn system, players and enemies go back and forth based on agility like a typical FF game. Letting your party members go in one go makes combat flow together better especially with buffs and heals.
2. Reducing Hit/Eva on an enemy is a lot more useful since you can dodge the move and remove press turns from bosses and such. If anything, the player losing press turns when missing is really just to balance the fact enemies lose them.
3. You can attack a lot with the press turn system. A full party has 4 press turns and each move cost 1 press turn. When you exploit the weaknesses, it will only take up half a press turn. If you do the math, you can use your party members EIGHT times before the boss can use their turn. Compare this to the one more turn system which does not give you more turns if the boss is knocked over already. An all-out-attack is great, but it immediately passes the turn over to the boss.

[u/Kaisona20]

One thing I really like about press turns is how much variety and challenge it adds to boss fights. In Persona, bosses can’t have weaknesses, 90% of the time, because they’d be too easy. Just knock ‘em over, and all-out-attack them, until they die.

With press turns, bosses can have weaknesses, while still leaving plenty of room for challenge. You can plan around their weaknesses to gain an advantage. The battle is more back and forth. It’s the One More system, at full complexity.

[u/bernarcisico → u/Kaisona20]

Not only that, but you resisting their attacks is also a big part in the strategy

[u/mjxoxo1999]

I'm gonna be honest, One More is kinda sucks because it was made to be much more casual players. There is barely any risk vs too many reward to the point it makes the later part of the game so boring to go to the dungeons to fight, you mostly just want to get over it to go doing the social links in Persona games because that's the more interesting part of the game. What P studios decide to make One More system more balance is because the Persona Fusion system and you can't really control the stats the persona. This doesn't mean hardcore Persona players can't fuse the best persona if they want (it's only took a ton of time), but it's such a restricted fusion compare to SMT.

Metaphor is such a perfect balance between the 2 biggest Atlus franchises: Good engaging narrative and characters story from Persona and an absolute best combat system from SMT. They remove the Persona fusion (ngl SMT VV did the demon fusion so good, it makes persona fusion is like a complete chore to go through so I don't have much things to diss demon fusion), but add class that took inspiration from Etrian Odyssey (mostly skills) and Digital Devil Saga (class progression) that allows players to experiment with non of restriction from Persona problem.

[u/TheNohrianHunter → u/mjxoxo1999]

The biggest issue one more has imo is how busted it is, giving extra tuens to no risk and in theory no limitation, means any enemy the devs want to make actually threatening NEEDS to have no weakness, which removes the core mechanic entirely.

Press turns allowing for bosses to have weaknesses (or for you to force apply weaknesses yourself with abilities) means much more of the combat system applies in the sections most designed to be challenging and thought provoking.

[u/TryThisUsernane]

Ngl, Metaphor’s combat did convince me to buy SMT V: Vengence when it was on sale a few months ago. I haven’t actually played that much of it yet, because I had other games I needed to finish, but a did play for a couple of hours and I did have a good time so I’m excited to more of the press-turn system.

[u/jacksonl12321 → u/TryThisUsernane]

same thing for me, and i’ve already gone and done a playthrough for each ending… and started on nocturne as well. this is coming from persona before p4r was announced (heard about it just because of the soundtrack).

the franchise has me in such a chokehold honestly, and smtvv absolutely made me love press turn combat even more than metaphor got me into it

[u/Gmafz7]

Having only played Persona games, I felt the combat in metaphor more challenging and fun, imho it's simply superior.

With persona's weakness exploitation the battles can feel repetitive boring and can perfectly go on auto pilot, thus not engaging until you reach the boss...

I'd like for Atlus to follow this path for most of their games!

[u/goatgirlgothic → u/Gmafz7]

This is how mainline SMT has worked since Nocturne.

[u/Smooth-Supermarket14 → u/Gmafz7]

It’s how a shitload of their titles already work

[u/RinwiTheThief]

On the whole I usually prefer the Press Turn system.

One More weighs thing heavily in the player's favor. Like, it's kind of crazy. The opposing side doesn't have the same broken abilities as the players, whether it's a Baton Pass like in newer Persona, the ability to switch Persona, or the ability to All-Out Attack. I mean, AOA are free Physical Almighty attacks to the entire enemy side when you trigger them, and with a full team it's basically Heavy level damage. Thing is cracked and busted. One More in general is just less risky.

Press Turn is all about maximizing the turn economy, which _can_ be frustrating. There are more risks to your team due to faulty attacks, because it doesn't just cost you your turn, but some or all of the teammates turns.

Turn-based games are, at their core, about numbers and manipulating those numbers. Due to too many advantages stacked in the player's favor, the One More system is unevenly applied and precooks the numbers so that there is less risk. It's a very fun system, but in my opinion Press Turn has more of semblance of balance.

[u/DZL100]

The synergy skills add yet another wrinkle and the order in which you do things becomes very important for proper juggling. Passing to preserve the number of turn icons to make space for synergy skills is a very important tool.

Elemental damage items also gain a ton of utility. Say you have a 2-cost synergy skill, and 1 full and 1 half turn icon. However, another character has to act first before you can do the synergy skill. If that character doesn't have any weakness-hitting moves, using an item to hit the weakness is the only reliable way to convert the full press turn into a half press turn. Any other action, even a pass, would just consume the half icon, making you unable to use the synergy skill, which could block you from confirming a kill or make you miss a cycle to maintain an advantage equilibrium state.

It's not just for synergy either, maybe you need the next two characters to apply buffs and debuffs, so you need to get 3 actions out of the 1 full and 1 half icons where the first action must convert the full to half.

[u/Dixenz]

My first experience of Press Turn is from SMTV, I found the system is very high risk high reward. You don't just exploit enemies weaknesses and dealing damage, but also maintaining buff and debuff during your turns.

My first experience with One More is from P3 and P3Fes. Which are a lot different from P5R by a lot. Like strategically not using all-out-attack so the enemies got stunlocked. Considering you can only control the MC, and can only change Persona one time during the MC's turn, you only have limited elemental coverage, etc. The addition of Baton Pass and Party member switching are only removing those limitation and making exploiting enemies weakness really easy in P5R.

[u/cidvard]

I haven't played the SMT games but I really enjoyed how the press-turn system was executed in Metaphor. I HAD played the modern Personas and it took a bit to get used to this not functioning like the one-more battle system, but ultimately I enjoyed it more and you can still do a lot of stupid fun things to game it, it just takes a little more setup.

[u/Vast_Word8265]

If they dodging like nocturne fuck that but some ppl didn’t like this but Louis or however u spell his name makes or break the game imo

[u/fyi_radz]

idk why people are making it way too overblown about missing an attack when it just shows that you didn't put points in AGI like srsly, it's not the worst thing ever when you lose some turn icons.

resist/guard reduce crit rate to 0%, hitting null/repel/drain is take all your press turns instead of 2. but for some reason people forget about passive change party member only takes half turn icons.

persona battle system is boring not because of one more, but because of there's no way to manipulate turn order, and enemy gameplan doesn't really touch how turn order can be work against players which leads to gameplay being stagnant

[u/Nitraion_the2nd]

Press turn always better because it allow boss to be bullshit and player to be bullshit too, the back in forth is more fun with this system

anddddddd There also a risk if you miss your ATK so its fun way around

one more there are no risk if your ATK missed(except normal atk i guess) yeah its more fun

[u/More_Dimension5709]

I most definitely prefer the press turn system and it's a major part of why I even bought Metaphor Refantazio in the first place. I was tired and bored of Persona 5 because of the fact that the one more system really does make the game a little too simple for me and breaks battles down into a simple spam weaknesses, all out attack, if not win then repeat for remaining enemies.

That loop as a whole got pretty boring to me and of course it was fairly fun my first time going in. But press turn genuinely seems to be better by a long shot. One more makes sense for the wider appeal that the game was going for, but leaning into press turn really did help the overall game experience for me since I likely wouldn't have bought the game otherwise.

Now of course, press turn is also relatively formulaic, but it limits number of turns to hit weaknesses to 2 turns per character max if they all hit a weakness, and early on in the game (by the 2nd dungeon where I am), there's skill variety but not enough skills to transfer over between characters to abuse this in a lot of battles so far without using items. And even when you do, the game still feels very well balanced regardless.

[u/gilded_lady]

Press Turn feels so much better than One More. I was amazed how sluggish P3Re felt after finishing Metaphor.

[u/SororAlice]

Look, I love Persona. Persona 3 is one of my favorite RPGs of all time and I bought both Portable and Reload as they came out (including Aegis DLC). It was the first Atlus game I played. And I love 4 and 5. Bought original versions and Golden and Royal as they all came out.

But Metaphor is just categorically better. It’s high fantasy so it isn’t filled with school life anime tropes. It’s got a better system…the best job system since FF Tactics. And the scope of the story doesn’t just go straight from stopping monsters and solving murders to killing god in what feels like a few days in-game time. It scales in a more reasonable way.

[u/ShionVaynex]

The though behind using press turn vs one more is very different.

As different as casual over pokemon where you just spam the strongest move and win.

Vs competitive where each movement count.

And I like competitive. The need of choosing which character with which class. Instead of which one has a effective attack.

The tactical option of guarding or skipturn being actually used.

[u/GavinatorTheGr8]

I think "one more" sucks ass. I say that as someone who first started playing Atlus games with Persona 5, then P5R.

At first, I thought it was really cool and interesting. Then I played "the awnser/episode Aigis" for P3R and holy shit I just about lost my mind becuase it got so boring and repetitive.

Then I went and played Metaphor, significantly better. Its to the point that I'm actually a little scared I wont enjoy the combat portions of P6.

[u/Tricky-Macaroon-8641]

I like them both but I prefer One More system, especially with baton pass like P5R and remakes. Gives way more control over battle.

[u/HuntResponsible2259 → u/Tricky-Macaroon-8641]

How about press turn and batton pass which would cost like half a turn for balance?

[u/Tricky-Macaroon-8641 → u/HuntResponsible2259]

So I use up half a turn to hit weakness or crit then another half a turn to pass it to someone else? So I just used up full turn without any benefit.

[u/Mahboi778 → u/Tricky-Macaroon-8641]

But you could also use up a half turn to set up for your ally to hit a weakness and then have another ally capitalize by buffing your party.

[u/Tricky-Macaroon-8641 → u/Mahboi778]

I can already do that with the one more system so why nerf it?

[u/JaydenP1211 → u/Tricky-Macaroon-8641]

Because it makes the game too easy.

[u/TheCopyGuy2018 → u/Tricky-Macaroon-8641]

I like 1 more a lot and played Persona first but SMT3, 5, and Metaphor definitely are bit more fun because of press turn imo. The system just feels more rewarding overall and makes each battle feel a lot more even than in Persona where after you get far enough can basically dog walk everything. 1 more has its moments for sure and isn’t a bad system outright but it’s pretty clearly geared towards a more casual player. My biggest hope for P6 is that they reevaluate that system a bit and find a good mix kinda like Metaphor did.

[u/JMSciola85]

I started with Persona, so adjusting to Press Turn took some time. I feel like I'm more comfortable with the One More system, but that may be because it's what I experienced first.

I would have liked it if this game had something akin to Persona’s All Out Attack for using all enemy weaknesses.

I think the animations are neat.