How about the character randomly uses a combat feat, and keeps a record of player's feat usage and use that to do the randomized routine.Melee combat that is both fun and not simply an abstracted zero range magic spell
CMUd ideas
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Jonathan
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Ideas for fun melee combat that isn't twitch (well, super twitch)
No stamina/fatigue. No recast timers. No snares. That's the goal.
Combat schools - at simplest level, piercing beats slashing beats blunt
beats piercing. Add or layer on top elemental damage. Equip a weapon
from one school get damage resist to opposed school, damage
vulnerability to opposing school. Make inv/skill system such that
carrying around multiple weapons is no big deal. During course of
combat, players switch from weapon to weapon to gain advantage and pull
off specials. Idea is that acquiring all resists is very difficult and
requires sacrificing offense, so most players choose a subset based on
situation.
Styles - no stamina/fatigue. Just different ways of doing your main
attack. Plus to damage, minus to hit. Plus to rate, minus to defense.
Plus to hit, minus to spell resist. And so on. Layer on top of damage
resists for even more fun. Plus to hit, minus to defense, and
vulnerability to piercing.
That's my best idea, I think. Works more or less as well for fantasy as
it does for scifi. I have some other ideas. Really, though, if you add
range and/or AoE damage, melees either need serious advantages (numbers,
HP: both make for unbalanced classes) or you should concentrate solely
on range & AoE damage. Repeat after me: fun melee has no snares.
Other ideas, some of which presuppose very little range 0 combat.
Mecha - players have umpteen weapons. Target a weapon to kill it and
reduce damage taken.
Tactics - hits and misses are resolved by die rolls assuming you have
line of sight to critical area. Combat becomes movement to protect your
critical area and access your opponent's. Think back versus flank versus
frontal. Best with groups.
Kombat - players enter old-school MUD-style "take turns hitting each
other" combat. Specials can be performed by entering combos, perhaps
based on timing.
Fallout - weapon accuracy decreases with increasing range. Certain
weapons have tighter spread than others, so that some weapons' damage
decreases with increasing range. Weapons vary in RoF, accuracy dropoff,
damage, radius/cone.
No stamina/fatigue. No recast timers. No snares. That's the goal.
Combat schools - at simplest level, piercing beats slashing beats blunt
beats piercing. Add or layer on top elemental damage. Equip a weapon
from one school get damage resist to opposed school, damage
vulnerability to opposing school. Make inv/skill system such that
carrying around multiple weapons is no big deal. During course of
combat, players switch from weapon to weapon to gain advantage and pull
off specials. Idea is that acquiring all resists is very difficult and
requires sacrificing offense, so most players choose a subset based on
situation.
Styles - no stamina/fatigue. Just different ways of doing your main
attack. Plus to damage, minus to hit. Plus to rate, minus to defense.
Plus to hit, minus to spell resist. And so on. Layer on top of damage
resists for even more fun. Plus to hit, minus to defense, and
vulnerability to piercing.
That's my best idea, I think. Works more or less as well for fantasy as
it does for scifi. I have some other ideas. Really, though, if you add
range and/or AoE damage, melees either need serious advantages (numbers,
HP: both make for unbalanced classes) or you should concentrate solely
on range & AoE damage. Repeat after me: fun melee has no snares.
Other ideas, some of which presuppose very little range 0 combat.
Mecha - players have umpteen weapons. Target a weapon to kill it and
reduce damage taken.
Tactics - hits and misses are resolved by die rolls assuming you have
line of sight to critical area. Combat becomes movement to protect your
critical area and access your opponent's. Think back versus flank versus
frontal. Best with groups.
Kombat - players enter old-school MUD-style "take turns hitting each
other" combat. Specials can be performed by entering combos, perhaps
based on timing.
Fallout - weapon accuracy decreases with increasing range. Certain
weapons have tighter spread than others, so that some weapons' damage
decreases with increasing range. Weapons vary in RoF, accuracy dropoff,
damage, radius/cone.
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Jonathan
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OK, I buy it, but make it more strategic. Define combat to be solely feats: there is no regular swing. For UI purposes, allow players to define an interruptable queue or a default mix or something. Allow feats to interact, aka renkai, but with opposing feats also part of the combo chain.Peijen wrote:How about the character randomly uses a combat feat, and keeps a record of player's feat usage and use that to do the randomized routine.
E.g. Left Slash followed by Right Slash then Overhead slash= bonus damage, but opponent can interrupt combo with any Low strike.
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Peijen
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by snare I assume you mean stop or slow type attack?
I think my orignial idea is similar to style. Here is how I envision combat with my skill/feat system.
Weapon combat is split into 4 skills, weapon-shield, two-handed weapon, two weapons, and ranged. Depend on how you equip yourself corresponding skill is use to determine effect. Feats are actual actions used to perform attack. Steal from your idea, each feat has a + and -. For example, multi attack feat might have +attack speed, and -damage. The +/- range is directly determine by your highest weapon skill, unless the feat states otherwise (shield feat only applies to weapon-shield skill, etc).
I think my orignial idea is similar to style. Here is how I envision combat with my skill/feat system.
Weapon combat is split into 4 skills, weapon-shield, two-handed weapon, two weapons, and ranged. Depend on how you equip yourself corresponding skill is use to determine effect. Feats are actual actions used to perform attack. Steal from your idea, each feat has a + and -. For example, multi attack feat might have +attack speed, and -damage. The +/- range is directly determine by your highest weapon skill, unless the feat states otherwise (shield feat only applies to weapon-shield skill, etc).
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Jonathan
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Yeah. This is the classic solution for devs who realize they have one class that is a bunch of glass cannons and another which is a tank with no range. You give everyone snares (and snare breakers!) so that the glass cannons can kite the tanks or the tanks can catch and hit the glass cannons.Peijen wrote:by snare I assume you mean stop or slow type attack?
It is boring, because when you're snared, you're not playing any more. It is frustrating, because when you're snared, people beat up on you and you can't do anything about it. Makes most encounters a "I couldn't even touch him!" affair.
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quantus
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Excessive pluses and minuses can cause the same... like minus your accuracy to 0 or damage to 0Dwindlehop wrote:It is boring, because when you're snared, you're not playing any more. It is frustrating, because when you're snared, people beat up on you and you can't do anything about it. Makes most encounters a "I couldn't even touch him!" affair.
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Jonathan
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True. You shouldn't have one-shot kills or 0 dmg/0 chance to hit, especially in a skill-based system like Peijen's.
Guild Wars has an interesting AC system based on exponentials. Something like every 40 AC makes you 50% harder to hit. So 80 AC gives opponents a base chance of 75%. Or something. I read a detailed breakdown of the math someplace. I'll dig it up later. Basically, you generally don't want resists/bonuses to be additive. You want 'em to be like Stars! Jammers/accuracy. Base Capital Ship Torpedo Accuracy 20%, Super battle computer decreases inaccuracy by 30%, so accuracy=1-(1-.2)*(1-.3)=.44. That's the kind of math you need. Guild Wars just fudges the constants until it comes out pretty.
Guild Wars has an interesting AC system based on exponentials. Something like every 40 AC makes you 50% harder to hit. So 80 AC gives opponents a base chance of 75%. Or something. I read a detailed breakdown of the math someplace. I'll dig it up later. Basically, you generally don't want resists/bonuses to be additive. You want 'em to be like Stars! Jammers/accuracy. Base Capital Ship Torpedo Accuracy 20%, Super battle computer decreases inaccuracy by 30%, so accuracy=1-(1-.2)*(1-.3)=.44. That's the kind of math you need. Guild Wars just fudges the constants until it comes out pretty.
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Jonathan
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Actually, Stars! Accuracy also has another nice property. While bonuses aren't additive, counters are. Jammers increase inaccuracy by 30%. However, if there are battle computers, they cancel the jammer effects additively. Going by the equation and the above example, a jammer should have accuracy=1-(1-.44)*(1+.3)=.27, but it doesn't because it simply stacks via subtraction, so the accuracy is .20. Of course, if you have bonuses beyond what your opponent counters, then you start multiplying.
And by "GW fudges constants," I meant uses logarithms and lookup tables. Of course.
And by "GW fudges constants," I meant uses logarithms and lookup tables. Of course.
I'm playing a signle player RPG (Seal of Evil) now that uses the A>B>C>A weapon/defense concept. Everything is based on the concept of five elements (Metal, Earth, Water, Wood, and Fire). My understanding of the game mechanics is still limited, but here's how I think it works.
Rather than traditional stats (Str, Dex, etc), each character has scores in each of the elements. Boost Metal to increase your damage or Wood to increase hit points. Whichever element is highest becomes the character's element. That plays some role in determining what kind of attacks they are strong or weak against. Enemy creatures also have a primary element.
Each weapon also has an element type. Using a Water weapon against a Fire creature does extra damage. Water>Fire>Metal>Wood>Earth>Water.
This is made more complicated by the fact that armor, helms, and boots also have element types. Some combination of your element scores and your equipment gives you five defense scores against the five elements. So, you can choose armor that covers a vulnerability or that amplifies a strength, but with only three armor/helm/boot slots, no one character can be strong against everything.
Ok, then you add in techniques. Depending on the combination of weapon element, active "aura"-like spells, and attack technique, you can get different effects. E.g., the witch's basic ranged attack technique (called something more flowery in game) is a standard ranged attack that takes the element of her weapon. But, if she activates her Fire-themed defensive spell and wields a fire element weapon, her basic technique gets a longer range. Alternatively, if she wields a wood element weapon and casts her wood defense spell, her attack slows enemies. So, depending on what you're fighting, you may pick a suboptimal weapon element or spell just to get the other effect. There are something like twelve empty technique slots so I assume that more spells, techinques, and combos will open up later in the game.
And then there's a second set of inter-element relationships that provide synergy bonuses to equipment. If you wear metal boots with water armor, you activate an extra defense bonus. This generalizes in some way to rings, necklaces, helms, and weapons of all elements, but the metal boots+water armor one is the only combo I've found so far.
Rather than traditional stats (Str, Dex, etc), each character has scores in each of the elements. Boost Metal to increase your damage or Wood to increase hit points. Whichever element is highest becomes the character's element. That plays some role in determining what kind of attacks they are strong or weak against. Enemy creatures also have a primary element.
Each weapon also has an element type. Using a Water weapon against a Fire creature does extra damage. Water>Fire>Metal>Wood>Earth>Water.
This is made more complicated by the fact that armor, helms, and boots also have element types. Some combination of your element scores and your equipment gives you five defense scores against the five elements. So, you can choose armor that covers a vulnerability or that amplifies a strength, but with only three armor/helm/boot slots, no one character can be strong against everything.
Ok, then you add in techniques. Depending on the combination of weapon element, active "aura"-like spells, and attack technique, you can get different effects. E.g., the witch's basic ranged attack technique (called something more flowery in game) is a standard ranged attack that takes the element of her weapon. But, if she activates her Fire-themed defensive spell and wields a fire element weapon, her basic technique gets a longer range. Alternatively, if she wields a wood element weapon and casts her wood defense spell, her attack slows enemies. So, depending on what you're fighting, you may pick a suboptimal weapon element or spell just to get the other effect. There are something like twelve empty technique slots so I assume that more spells, techinques, and combos will open up later in the game.
And then there's a second set of inter-element relationships that provide synergy bonuses to equipment. If you wear metal boots with water armor, you activate an extra defense bonus. This generalizes in some way to rings, necklaces, helms, and weapons of all elements, but the metal boots+water armor one is the only combo I've found so far.
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Peijen
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Whee, the telnet server is functional, took a while to hunt down a deadlock when I shutdown the server, but that's worked out. I am having a lot of fun with the network programming part, better than my job that's for sure.
New I need to work on character design so I can start coding character creation. Maybe I will get off my lazy ass sometime and find me a database server / spare computer, so I can start working on the database portion as well.
New I need to work on character design so I can start coding character creation. Maybe I will get off my lazy ass sometime and find me a database server / spare computer, so I can start working on the database portion as well.
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Peijen
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I guess I should mention this earlier. Jon agree to setup the subversion server for this, anyone can take part once the server is up and running. I also just realize today, that I don't have a static IP to setup a test server hehe.
If you don't have subversion client. Search for subversion and from their website get toroiseSVN
If you don't have subversion client. Search for subversion and from their website get toroiseSVN
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Peijen
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Per Jon's request the server now runs on Mono 1.1.8. I have to modify part of the program because Mono's TcpListener doesn't support asynchronous calls.
Anyone who has a idea on what they would like to see in RPG character put them here. I kind of like Seal of Evil's element idea, but I am not sure if I care to have combination eq give bonus(so I am lazy bite me).
Anyone who has a idea on what they would like to see in RPG character put them here. I kind of like Seal of Evil's element idea, but I am not sure if I care to have combination eq give bonus(so I am lazy bite me).
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Jonathan
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Yeah. Heh. Two things: I was sort of implicitly thinking that the spells wouldn't stack. Also, in a skill-based system, you don't have to have two characters to access low level spells.Peijen wrote:I thought you don't like buff bots?Dwindlehop wrote:Since Peijen has a skill-based system instead of class-based, he could probably tie bonuses/resists to low-cost spells with long durations instead of or in addition to eq. Whatever.
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Jonathan
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http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/ga ... -id674.php
[Defensive Adjustment] = 2^((60 - [Armor Level]) / 40)
For GW, AL determines the damage multiplier, not the miss rate. But the math is there.
My computer won't turn on. I'm taking my PS to work to see if it still works.
[Defensive Adjustment] = 2^((60 - [Armor Level]) / 40)
For GW, AL determines the damage multiplier, not the miss rate. But the math is there.
My computer won't turn on. I'm taking my PS to work to see if it still works.
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Peijen
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Basic character design as of now.
A character is made up of three things, attributes, skills, and feats. Attributes and skills has a total cap, I am thinking of allowing character to learn all the feats in game if they care to put in the time.
Attributes comes in pair, offensvie and defensive. Str, Con; Dex, Agi; Spr, Int; Each attribute also has other uses, but for now I am just thinking of physical combat.
Here is what I have in mind for hit rate based on memory (I had it written down, but it's at home), since Jon is interested about it.
(50% + attack_skill / 2000) * (1 - block%) * (1 + (dex - agi) / 100) * (1 + bonus%)
I am not sure what the skills/feats will be yet.
A character is made up of three things, attributes, skills, and feats. Attributes and skills has a total cap, I am thinking of allowing character to learn all the feats in game if they care to put in the time.
Attributes comes in pair, offensvie and defensive. Str, Con; Dex, Agi; Spr, Int; Each attribute also has other uses, but for now I am just thinking of physical combat.
Here is what I have in mind for hit rate based on memory (I had it written down, but it's at home), since Jon is interested about it.
(50% + attack_skill / 2000) * (1 - block%) * (1 + (dex - agi) / 100) * (1 + bonus%)
I am not sure what the skills/feats will be yet.
One possibility I don't think I've seen mentioned is not to differentiate between skills and attributes. Treat the attributes as very general (and presumeably very costly) skills. For example, one point more of offensive dexterity or one point more of sword skill each increase your chance to hit with a sword by the same amount. However, the sword skill does nothing when you wield an axe, but if your willing to limit your weapon choice you'll be able to increase your sword skill faster. You could also add an intermediate level of skills for weapon groups (like slashing or bludgeoning).
I feel like I just beat a kitten to death... with a bag of puppies.