We wanted to further expand the seamless transition by making the opening of a fight part of the strategy. How a player engages combat, starting the transition between exploration to tactics gameplay, can be a part of the strategy that builds up that exploration and tactics relation.
Engaging is one of the first interactions the player makes with the enemies (the first could be the interactable terrain every now and then). As such, we want to reward strategy around the engagement.
As seen in recent JRPGs, bonuses are often given based on whether the player engaged or whether the enemy engaged. This keeps players thinking even while taking in the exploration.
So, let's start with how the combat can be initiated. What kinds of engages are there? The player can get the first hit in the overworld using an overworld attack, or the enemy can get the first hit by either using its own attack or coming into contact with the player.
For our combat, when the player engages, they will be rewarded with extra movement/actions. And for continuity, we can add an added bonus of the fight starting in the Player Phase.
Conversely, if the enemy engages, we can lightly punish the situation by allowing the enemy the advantage of starting on Enemy Phase.
These are two ends of rewarding or punishing play, but it lacks a neutral outcome to form a frame of reference.
So, we can create a distinction in the player prompted engage. If the player can also catch the enemy by surprise and attack while be unspotted, then we can grant the player bonusses. But if the enemy knows of the player's presence already but just can't make the first contact, the tactics combat can enter a neutral start.
The obvious answer for a neutral engage is a 50/50 between player or enemy start phase. A truly balanced scenario. However, we found that it felt not-very-fun when the player prompts the combat, but the game starts on the enemy phase still.
Instead, we rather skew favor towards the player and just let battle begin on player phase with no additional benefits.
By keeping exploration part of the strategy, we aim to keep players in the flow state even between the two different styles of gameplay, rather than cutaways that abruptly change the pace.