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PyTFall => PyTFall: Game design => Topic started by: Xela on January 24, 2014, 11:00:49 AM

Title: <-- Archived --> (Battle Engine and Combat)
Post by: Xela on January 24, 2014, 11:00:49 AM
Archived, we have a new BE now.

- We're currently using Jake's BE feeding it data through a simple bridge function (this can be improved).
- We've chosen simple battle stationary battle scenario to save time.
- There is currently no code to use our items in BE but it's not difficult to add.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 24, 2014, 11:01:12 AM
-- Reserved --
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 24, 2014, 11:17:27 AM
I've been wondering about elements and magic for some time. Do we need magic defence stat? Or should we just use a separate resistance/absorption to each of elements?
For instance, D&D has quite complex system, it uses checks for reflex/will/fortitude as well as pure magic resistance vs difficulty class of spells, it has both absolute and relative absorptions for each element and even physical attacks, up to immunity in some cases.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 24, 2014, 11:49:53 AM
I've been wondering about elements and magic for some time. Do we need magic defence stat? Or should we just use a separate resistance/absorption to each of elements?
For instance, D&D has quite complex system, it uses checks for reflex/will/fortitude as well as pure magic resistance vs difficulty class of spells, it has both absolute and relative absorptions for each element and even physical attacks, up to immunity in some cases.

To tell you the truth, I have no clue. First I would like to see community response on having a proper BE in a Sim game. I loved it in first OW release, it's kinda cool but to simple in SlaveMaker...

Second, we need to agree on a scheme (Moving on picture (grid), Moving on Tiles, Moving 3D ( with elevations), stationary with raws, stationary without raws and etc.).
===========
I love discussing possibilities as usual BUT I don't think that we can make a decision on this (and some other important concepts) until Alpha release, couple of polls, feedback and most importantly, if there'll be more people joining the dev team to develop content...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 25, 2014, 07:44:04 AM
Yeah-yeah, but I'd like to discuss BE anyway. My posts also could be used as notes in the future.

Another thing is elements. D&D has fire, ice, electricity, acid, negative and positive energy, divine, sound, pure magic and three types of physical damage.
No such classic things as earth or wind, also no opposing elements.

On the other hand, Golden Sun (another example of good combat mechanics) has fire, earth, wind (including electricity), water (including ice), light and darkness. Opposing elements are quite obvious here.

Meanwhile in Naruto, for example, wind and electricity elements are separate, with unobvious opposing elements (fire>wind>lightning>earth>water>fire).
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 25, 2014, 08:41:05 AM
It'll also be a pain to balance out items/traits with multiple game systems (like combat, slave-training, brothel management). We need to find balance that would make sense and require not to much code.

In any case, I am not really familiar with any battle system. So whatever we pick would have to be layed out as a concept before I can code anything in.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 25, 2014, 12:38:57 PM
One single stat like mdef would be more convenient for checks in the code. But in that case there won't be any difference between, let's say, fireball and ice spear. Except the animation and sound, of course.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 25, 2014, 02:42:37 PM
One single stat like mdef would be more convenient for checks in the code. But in that case there won't be any difference between, let's say, fireball and ice spear. Except the animation and sound, of course.

Leaving things as it is convenient, I don't expect there to be a huge difference between adding element alignment and singe magical defense stat for me as a coder (4 - 6 step if fork vs one-liner considering that we already have thousands lines of code and content). For content creators (packs/items/traits/texts) it might be a real pain (in many cases that's us as well). I've learned from PyTFall development (and especially Alkion development), that coding and making a game are two different things.

In the end, it all comes down to game design and reward vs time invested. Example with items: I now believe that it was a mistake to enable non-consumable items to add traits. It created layers of confusing code and very little game play value.

About the same thing might count for advanced BE features, unless we intend to add something like extremely expensive slaves at the market and instead allow capture (and training thereafter) deep in the woods/catacombs/dungeon, there is very little value even in adding mdef stat. As things are now, magic is slightly more powerful than normal attacks BUT it requires MP while normal (melee/range) attacks are infinite.

If we add advanced combat mechanics, I would like to see a part of a game that would greatly benefit from it. My own intuition tells me that 80% of players would prefer to see a good, modable slave training mechanics or more jobs or more interaction or more quests and events.

================
Bottomline, lets say we add fullscaled element alignments, with maps and tiles code to support that, who is going to build maps? Set up enemies/bosses/rewards? Add items, edit characters, traits and write texts/quests/encounters. I mean, you are the main advocate of strong battle mech and yet you are the one who said it would be a pain to code a 20x20 or 40x40 tiles map environments... I've seen rougelikes with 100x100 tiled maps (or even levels) easy.

We still have to:

- Add couple of new attacks in new versions and locations to learn them.
- Fix items adding/removing proper melee attacks (doesn't seem to be working right now).
- Add special field to items (like "battle-item") so they can be registered with the BE when player fights outside of arena.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 25, 2014, 03:13:56 PM
If we add advanced combat mechanics, I would like to see a part of a game that would greatly benefit from it.
We already have that part, aren't we? You can't make interesting Arena without interesting BE.

Bottomline, lets say we add fullscaled element alignments, with maps and tiles code to support that
You lost me here. How are maps and tiles connected to elements? I expect elements to be used with spells, monsters stats (like fire elemental immune to fire) and maybe items properties.

you are the one who said it would be a pain to code a 20x20 or 40x40 tiles map environments
...without the map editor. It's always a pain to create content without any tools at all.

Example with items: I now believe that it was a mistake to enable non-consumable items to add traits. It created layers of confusing code and very little game play value.
But items that can do nothing but change stats are boring. Be my guest and remove that option, but add elemental properties instead :)
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 25, 2014, 03:53:12 PM
We already have that part, aren't we? You can't make interesting Arena without interesting BE.

I am not sure about that... we'll have to see how the arena turns out in gameplay. Like I've said, I love OtherWorld but there is literally no version that I've played for as long as the very first one with a much simpler BE than we have right now.

I am not sure that improving mechanics instead for example, creating new hard to acquire magic and attacks would be a way to go. I would much rather do an hour long, multi-staged difficult quest to get a new kick-ass magic spell with a 2.0 multiplier than spending two hours on this forum trying to figure inner workings of a complex battle engine mechanic.

In the end, any system will get abused and be broken in the end, magic even in great games like Skyrim come down to choosing any one single magical line and reducing spell cost to bare minimum, other mechanics like mana regeneration be damned. In the end, by level 30 - 40, you'll be sniping Frost Dragons with frost spells like they are mere flies.

You lost me here. How are maps and tiles connected to elements? I expect elements to be used with spells, monsters stats (like fire elemental immune to fire) and maybe items properties.

In decent game, you'd expect some mudcrabs and snakes with water alignment on swamp tiles, sand scorpions with fire alignment on desert tiles and so on. Not mentioning that desert time might weaken Water based mage due to a lack of liquid in the area. That's more or less what I've meant.

...without the map editor. It's always a pain to create content without any tools at all.

And yet you've created 250 items boasting almost 6k lines of xml code (40x40 map for our current setup is WAAAAY less than that)? Editor is also not easy to make, especially with incomplete or non-existent game design document. It took Rudi 2 years of talking about tags before he actually made an editor.


===============
I gave some thought to using software like "tiled" to make maps. The trouble is that writing Python code to create a proper RPG environment to utilize that code is a project of similar scale to PyTFall itself. Yet, we have other options... like Alkions BE or any of the Jake's BE schemes that would require less effort.

What do you want to see in PyTFall? I mean, what would you be willing to create content for (like maps, enemies, rewards, items etc.). Or do you simply see value in adding complex mechanics to the battle engine scheme that we have now? It wouldn't be hard, especially since the entire thing is coded pretty much in pure Python so we can add any math or forks to it...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 26, 2014, 01:48:15 AM
I would much rather do an hour long, multi-staged difficult quest to get a new kick-ass magic spell with a 2.0 multiplier than spending two hours on this forum trying to figure inner workings of a complex battle engine mechanic.
Ok, what is an interesting quest? It is a) exploring (but we don't have EE, and our city is not big enough); b) fighting (good BE required); c) dialogues, preferably nonlinear (we don't have a writer for such stuff); d) decent reward (the only thing we have covered, either slave, item or battle skill).

Skyrim come down to choosing any one single magical line and reducing spell cost to bare minimum, other mechanics like mana regeneration be damned. In the end, by level 30 - 40, you'll be sniping Frost Dragons with frost spells like they are mere flies.
Since you want to talk about Skyrim, I can tell you that magic is nothing there compared to archery, for example. Because you can improve bow damage to insane value with blacksmithing/enchantment/alchemy combo and then sniping any dragons on the max difficulty.

In decent game, you'd expect some mudcrabs and snakes with water alignment on swamp tiles, sand scorpions with fire alignment on desert tiles and so on. Not mentioning that desert time might weaken Water based mage due to a lack of liquid in the area.
Nah, Golden Sun (one of the best games about elemental magic imo) doesn't have such connection with terrain, except for a couple of scripted boss battles.

And yet you've created 250 items boasting almost 6k lines of xml code (40x40 map for our current setup is WAAAAY less than that)?
Yup, you don't have to clearly imagine all 250 items at the same time when you create 251 one. While you have to imagine the whole map.

What do you want to see in PyTFall? I mean, what would you be willing to create content for (like maps, enemies, rewards, items etc.). Or do you simply see value in adding complex mechanics to the battle engine scheme that we have now?
I wonder about maps. Maybe they should be random, with preset boss rooms, like in diablo games. This way you clearly won't know what to expect behind the corner, not matter how long you played. Btw, Alkion has a decent dungeon crawling EE, we could use it as a base.

Enemies, rewards, items I am willing to create as long as it is makes sense. For instance, currently it makes no sense to create a new weapon, since it won't be any different from those that we already have due to game limitations. But add, for example, elements to items, and you will have new fire/ice/etc weapons. Or add status effects, and you will have poisoning/dizzying/etc weapons.

Complex mechanics are needed for BE for sure. We can take a lot of interesting ideas from jrpg games. Currently we don't have any strategy during combat, you just click on enemies to attack them or use healing item when you obviously need healing. You could try Golden Sun (GBA and DS), some FF games (Playstation 1-2, not the recent ones, they are more like slashers rather than rpgs), Arc Rise Fantasia (Wii) and see for yourself. You don't even need consoles, emulators would be enough providing that you have a good pc.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 26, 2014, 04:28:56 AM
Ok, what is an interesting quest? It is a) exploring (but we don't have EE, and our city is not big enough); b) fighting (good BE required); c) dialogues, preferably nonlinear (we don't have a writer for such stuff); d) decent reward (the only thing we have covered, either slave, item or battle skill).

Combination of fighting and dialogs? Finding some NPC in the city (which we can expand), gather a bunch of specific items? Sacrifice a virgin? I can think of a lot of things... We'll have to do our best without a writer, I mean, game without texts would be absurd.

Since you want to talk about Skyrim, I can tell you that magic is nothing there compared to archery, for example. Because you can improve bow damage to insane value with blacksmithing/enchantment/alchemy combo and then sniping any dragons on the max difficulty.

I know (play it with bow), my point was that even a game made by a professional team is broken.

Nah, Golden Sun (one of the best games about elemental magic imo) doesn't have such connection with terrain, except for a couple of scripted boss battles.

You've asked, I've answered :)

Yup, you don't have to clearly imagine all 250 items at the same time when you create 251 one. While you have to imagine the whole map.
I wonder about maps. Maybe they should be random, with preset boss rooms, like in diablo games. This way you clearly won't know what to expect behind the corner, not matter how long you played. Btw, Alkion has a decent dungeon crawling EE, we could use it as a base.

I don't think you have to imagine the whole map either...

I would prefer something similar to Alkions design but with better controls and attacks being displayed ON the map, not as splash-screens. In any case, I expect that to be a pain to make as well.

Maps can be random, obviously. When we talked about it, it was just a couple of maps before code and content required to make random once is established.

Enemies, rewards, items I am willing to create as long as it is makes sense. For instance, currently it makes no sense to create a new weapon, since it won't be any different from those that we already have due to game limitations. But add, for example, elements to items, and you will have new fire/ice/etc weapons. Or add status effects, and you will have poisoning/dizzying/etc weapons.

I need to take a look at the items to see if they already carry enough data to set attacks by them...

Complex mechanics are needed for BE for sure. We can take a lot of interesting ideas from jrpg games. Currently we don't have any strategy during combat, you just click on enemies to attack them or use healing item when you obviously need healing. You could try Golden Sun (GBA and DS), some FF games (Playstation 1-2, not the recent ones, they are more like slashers rather than rpgs), Arc Rise Fantasia (Wii) and see for yourself. You don't even need consoles, emulators would be enough providing that you have a good pc.

No time to test these games out... when do you think we should add these mechanics? Post Alpha/Beta/First full release?
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 26, 2014, 05:07:01 AM
I guess you should take a look at the current BE code for a start. How much can it do compared to those games? Do we have to create a new one, or the current one will be more than enough for any idea that is possible to implement with a small team?

Obviously, we won't use those 3D BE from demo. But at least one of them does have elements of some kind already, with different spells working differently on various enemies. Also, iirc, another one has a charm spell of some kind allowing to control an enemy (=mind spell, basically).

So, what else could we need? Rows (http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Row), maybe characters switch (http://goldensunwiki.net/Battle).
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 26, 2014, 06:52:00 AM
I guess you should take a look at the current BE code for a start. How much can it do compared to those games? Do we have to create a new one, or the current one will be more than enough for any idea that is possible to implement with a small team?

You've seen what it can do in the demos. We can also assume that it was written so new games could be created with it, not just to show off skills of the coder.

I do not suspect it will present serious limitations other than complexity of it's code (due to different battle-schemes laying out spaghetti code all over the place).

How can I make a call on creating a new BE or keep using Jake's BE if we still haven't decided on what kind of BE we want to see in the game? I mean, lets say we decide on keeping the simple exploration system with a map for a grid and background/events on every tile. Than for a battle we use Jake's BE with a simple background BUT also with a grid on it. We throw couple of rocks and a tree on couple of tiles to create impassible tiles and block line of sight. BoOOOm... we've just added new tactical concepts such as range and movement points. There is now even a difference between Bows and Swords... Raws have become bloody obsolete... We can use the same resources as we do right now.

For a case as described above we'll be prolly better off with Jake's BE. Also we could use different battle schemes at different locations. Obvious disadvantage: all stats, skills and items must be converted from PyTFall to BE formats (I expect that I will find better and better solutions on how to do that).

Obviously, we won't use those 3D BE from demo. But at least one of them does have elements of some kind already, with different spells working differently on various enemies. Also, iirc, another one has a charm spell of some kind allowing to control an enemy (=mind spell, basically).

I think it's a skill, not a spell, but we can create a lot of those to different effects I expect.

So, what else could we need? Rows (http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Row), maybe characters switch (http://goldensunwiki.net/Battle).

No idea, I keep saying we need to decide what kind of battle schemes we want...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 26, 2014, 11:43:33 AM
I mean, lets say we decide on keeping the simple exploration system with a map for a grid and background/events on every tile.
I recall at least a couple of games with such BE, one of them is Agarest from which I ripped gui elements recently. I can tell you such BE gets boring fast. Every time you have to position yourself, usually in the same way, and battles that would be short in FF-type BE because of difference in levels became unreasonably long.
Also I believe it would be more difficult to code battle AI for such BE.

   
No idea, I keep saying we need to decide what kind of battle schemes we want...
What I mean is does Jake's BE able to do such things with minor improvements, or it would be easier to create a new BE.

I think you should get yourself familiar with those games I mentioned at least through wikia/youtube, to have a point of view if nothing else. So far you only mentioned that the current supersimple BE is fine for you.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: CherryWood on January 26, 2014, 12:32:05 PM
 From games with FF style combat like we have now, I kinda liked J-Girls Fight (crimson's H flash game)
http://www.funny-games.biz/j-girl-fight.html (http://www.funny-games.biz/j-girl-fight.html)
(It have back row (2+2 chr) that is not targetable with melee attacks, special attack gauge (one for entire team) that is increased with normal attack and charge command and used for EX attacks (3 levels), simple rock/paper/scissors system with 1.5 damage modifier and some special attacks that cause weakness or slow, but these is no mana or items.)
I'm not telling we should do something similar, but system like this gives me the feeling that there is some tactics involved, while still looking manageable.
But I know that most fun there comes from the fact that opponents are pre-set to create a challenge...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 26, 2014, 12:36:02 PM
I recall at least a couple of games with such BE, one of them is Agarest from which I ripped gui elements recently. I can tell you such BE gets boring fast. Every time you have to position yourself, usually in the same way, and battles that would be short in FF-type BE because of difference in levels became unreasonably long.
Also I believe it would be more difficult to code battle AI for such BE.

Jake already has such a set-up with working AI.

What I mean is does Jake's BE able to do such things with minor improvements, or it would be easier to create a new BE.

It should, I can't see why not.

I think you should get yourself familiar with those games I mentioned at least through wikia/youtube, to have a point of view if nothing else. So far you only mentioned that the current supersimple BE is fine for you.

I see little point in going through games until we agree on what kind of BE we're gonna use. We all know what our options are.


Quote
From games with FF style combat like we have now, I kinda liked J-Girls Fight (crimson's H flash game)
http://www.funny-games.biz/j-girl-fight.html
(It have back row (2+2 chr) that is not targetable with melee attacks, special attack gauge (one for entire team) that is increased with normal attack and charge command and used for EX attacks (3 levels), simple rock/paper/scissors system with 1.5 damage modifier and some special attacks that cause weakness or slow, but these is no mana or items.)
I'm not telling we should do something similar, but system like this gives me the feeling that there is some tactics involved, while still looking manageable.

(But I know that most fun there comes from the fact that opponents are pre-set to create a challenge...)

I've played that. Girls you get are very different from the girls you fight against. But even this a semi-professional game.

==============================
I don't get one thing... when we talk about brothel management aspects, we do not reference to Sim-City or Tycoon games. We reference to SM, OW, WM, Sim-Bro. When we talk exploration and BE, we reference to Pro/Semi-Pro games. Why...?

We can barely manage our simple BE with rudimentary exploration system...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: CherryWood on January 26, 2014, 03:51:20 PM
So.... If we don't want to decide on BE for a while (that's also fine...), are there any plans for warriors besides the guard job for nearest future? (like some automatic fighting)
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 26, 2014, 04:14:54 PM
So.... If we don't want to decide on BE for a while (that's also fine...), are there any plans for warriors besides the guard job for nearest future? (like some automatic fighting)

Nope, other than backing up hero in team fights in the Arena, not for the Alpha release.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 27, 2014, 05:54:10 AM
I see little point in going through games until we agree on what kind of BE we're gonna use. We all know what our options are.
Lol, how can we agree if you don't have an opinion? I tell you, play/watch some games, get an opinion, then we'll agree.
The current BE is too boring anyway, so it's not an option.

I don't get one thing... when we talk about brothel management aspects, we do not reference to Sim-City or Tycoon games. We reference to SM, OW, WM, Sim-Bro. When we talk exploration and BE, we reference to Pro/Semi-Pro games. Why...?
Those games are global RTS, they have nothing to do with small brothels. Unlike SM, OW, WM and Sim-Bro, which are already quite popular, so their systems are more or less suitable.

Again, if you have some non-pro games with interesting BE in mind, tell us about them, I'll take a look. If not, why bother mentioning this topic?
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 27, 2014, 07:54:33 AM
Lol, how can we agree if you don't have an opinion? I tell you, play/watch some games, get an opinion, then we'll agree.
The current BE is too boring anyway, so it's not an option.

I've seen/played most BE types out there, I see no point in going over iterations with a couple new stats or alignments.

Also, my opinion (as stated many times before), is that BE is not as important as tasks, quests, reactions by in game characters/NPCs on players progress, stat mining and getting new cool shitz like spells and weapons. BE is secondary (given our type of the game), what we have, will imho be enough for a while. I said this plenty of times...

That said, lets say we add: Raws, magical_defense and nature alignment:

Instantly, aside from coding BE itself, we'll have to (or BE would make even less sense that what we have today):

- add alignment to all characters
- add range to all weapons (at least by type)
- add new subclasses to Warrior (Mage, Archer, Healer etc.)
- add the stat obviously
- add per level max cap gains for every battle stat of every subclass (to be tracked separately)
- add team formation screen
- balance out the types so one doesn't eclipse all others


Just to get things to make sense again...

If we take BE from Alkion:

- There is still only one enemy
- Interface is bloody confusing
- AI is AFK
- Only one attack/magical spell and adding new once is a lot harder than to Jake's BE
- Still only a couple of tiles
- No editor for maps
- Steps are still only per tile
- No los/pow in a sense as it is generally understood
- It's as poorly balanced as our BE (prolly worse)
- Tiles are not being cut properly on intersection between different tile-types.

Those games are global RTS, they have nothing to do with small brothels. Unlike SM, OW, WM and Sim-Bro, which are already quite popular, so their systems are more or less suitable.

I meant depth and quality of logic.

Again, if you have some non-pro games with interesting BE in mind, tell us about them, I'll take a look. If not, why bother mentioning this topic?

Someone might know...

I don't get one other thing, you keep trying to get me to play some games, all those BE's can be described in simple generally understood terms and concepts. Can you describe what you would like to see? Another point is that what we need is the mech behind the BE, playing it will give you a feeling for it, not necessarily enable you to create a similar one. If system is so complex that balancing it out will take month, it's not worth it (and don't ask me how long it would take to get it done, I strongly doubt that my math is any better than yours).
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 27, 2014, 08:36:36 AM

Congrats on 1k+ posts btw, I've just noticed :)
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 27, 2014, 09:33:08 AM
Also, my opinion (as stated many times before), is that BE is not as important as tasks, quests, reactions by in game characters/NPCs on players progress, stat mining and getting new cool shitz like spells and weapons.
No-no-no, it's just general words again. I mentioned games which have cool ideas in BE, it's your turn now. No matter how unimportant BE, it still should not be boring. As complex as it might be, the BE I'd like to see won't be boring.

- add alignment to all characters
- add range to all weapons (at least by type)
- add new subclasses to Warrior (Mage, Archer, Healer etc.)
- add the stat obviously
- add per level max cap gains for every battle stat of every subclass (to be tracked separately)
- add team formation screen
- balance out the types so one doesn't eclipse all others
Yup, many characters (like in Naruto) have elemental  alignment. Although others don't, so I'm not sure if we need it. I'd say we could give a couple of fire spells to fire alignment chars and forget about it.

Yes we need range weapons if we use rows (I will gladly create them, of course).

Not sure about subclasses. We already have  Warrior and probably Healer occupations, separate battle subclasses are an overkill. Why can't you use both weapon and magic if trained long enough? And we will have schools, manuals, etc. for training.

If you mean mag def stat, we will need it anyway at some piont.

Team formation screen is no big deal compared to Arena  ::)

Don't get this one about types, what types are you talking about?

- AI is AFK
I love that part  :D

I don't get one other thing, you keep trying to get me to play some games, all those BE's can be described in simple generally understood terms and concepts. Can you describe what you would like to see?
I see two options: either continue to use the current FF-type BE, gradually adding new features to make it more interesting, or use something original and created from scratch (and I have no idea what exactly). So unless you or Cherry or someone else has any good ideas for a completly new BE, we have no choice but to use the first option.

We also cannot use 3D BE because of obvious lack of 3D content. So I'd say we should use FF-type BE with those features from other games that can be relatively easy coded and balanced. I have no idea which ones could be coded relatively easy unless you take a look at Jacks' BE closely.

Congrats on 1k+ posts btw, I've just noticed
Thanks. It was a long way  :)
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 27, 2014, 10:09:56 AM
No-no-no, it's just general words again. I mentioned games which have cool ideas in BE, it's your turn now. No matter how unimportant BE, it still should not be boring. As complex as it might be, the BE I'd like to see won't be boring.

No, that is actually a clearcut concept where development effort is focused around content, interaction and relaying mechanics into conversations with NPCs and characters. That (as strange as it may sound) requires the same amount of effort as an advanced BE.

Also, there are many ways to make BE fun. Check out CW's Sailor girl screaming FIIIYYA AAAARO on launch :)


Don't get this one about types, what types are you talking about?

I meant subclasses.

I see two options: either continue to use the current FF-type BE, gradually adding new features to make it more interesting, or use something original and created from scratch (and I have no idea what exactly). So unless you or Cherry or someone else has any good ideas for a completly new BE, we have no choice but to use the first option.

We also cannot use 3D BE because of obvious lack of 3D content. So I'd say we should use FF-type BE with those features from other games that can be relatively easy coded and balanced. I have no idea which ones could be coded relatively easy unless you take a look at Jacks' BE closely.

What timeframe are we talking about here? I am personally in favor of movement on a simple grid drawn over battlefield background, rather than rows.

We can't use 3D period. Ren'Py developers are not in any hurry to add 3D rendering to the engine since so few VNs use it (I actually don't know a single one).

Since you have no idea of "what exactly", I suggest we stick with Jake's BE and FF style. Once we've agreed on a timeframe (when we actually add rows or grid), I'll start looking into depth of the engine, likely by merging it with the game (right now it's a separate system with a bridge). That'll take off about a week of our dev time (if not more), but I'll know a lot more about the engine then.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: CherryWood on January 27, 2014, 11:06:18 AM
I read through the BE forum, and there are bits of code for healing (its basically -damage spell but with different AI when enemy will use it) and weakness spell (changing stats that last for x turns).
We already have a dmg and all-enemy targeting, so If that really works, we should be easily able to make majority of classic skill with it, because they are usually just a variation or combination of these effects.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 27, 2014, 11:28:48 AM
I read through the BE forum, and there are bits of code for healing (its basically -damage spell but with different AI when enemy will use it) and weakness spell (changing stats that last for x turns).
We already have a dmg and all-enemy targeting, so If that really works, we should be easily able to make majority of classic skill with it, because they are usually just a variation or combination of these effects.

Yeap, but the trick is figuring out how integrate BE into PyTFall or/if add rows. Preferably without breaking other schemes. Question now is to decide when to start messing with BE, I'll have couple of hour free tonight, I was planning on taking a look at girlsmeets and maybe put in a new location (like beach) but if we can make a final decision to stick with FF styled BE, I'd love to start digging into that code :)
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 27, 2014, 02:01:49 PM
http://pyromancers.com/dungeon-painter-online/

Wow???

I recon we can use something like this...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 27, 2014, 05:45:13 PM
I covered 30 - 40% of the BE code and did some prototyping:

(http://s16.postimg.org/6nzibdrrl/2014_01_28_00_30.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/6nzibdrrl/)

Line of sight works.
Range for weapons and magic works.
Both Automatic and Manual camera work.
Movement works.
AI tries to kill you and magical AI even attempted to keep distance and hurl fireballs at us.
I think we can have get sprites automatically facing to right or left.
etc...

There is no FogOfWar in the engine whats so ever.

It will be relatively easy to add Mdef stat, very easy to have BE take into account alignments. I am not going to attempt merging it into PyTFall until Beta or maybe even until 1.0. I have some ideas on how to add rows but I haven't covered all parts of code to figure out how difficult that will actually be.

That's all for tonight.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 28, 2014, 01:20:15 AM
Looks cool. Although there could be a problem with battle sprites position, like when character and monster are fighing while turned their backs to each other.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 28, 2014, 01:36:40 AM
Looks cool. Although there could be a problem with battle sprites position, like when character and monster are fighing while turned their backs to each other.

I think we can have get sprites automatically facing to right or left.

I "think" that fog of war can be added but it'll be tricky. Even more difficult will be adding maps from a proper editor like Tiled. Basically that was simply a very large picture made with the site from the post above. We'd have to block every tile or assign events to it by hand.

-------------------
It was just prototyping, I doubt we'll be using that any time soon on a large scale. Maybe single large map for some dungeon outside the city as an easter egg or quest to capture/save one of the unique girls.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 28, 2014, 07:16:00 AM
Oops, my bad  :)

We can live without fog of war if it will be too tricky to add. The picture looks like TRPG, many good TRPGs don't have it as well, like Fire Emblem or FF Tactics.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 28, 2014, 08:24:03 AM
Oops, my bad  :)

We can live without fog of war if it will be too tricky to add. The picture looks like TRPG, many good TRPGs don't have it as well, like Fire Emblem or FF Tactics.

Ok, so we can do something like this then:

Alpha - Current BE.
Beta - Current BE with Elements, MDef and prolly raws.
Release - Adding couple of dungeons on pictures (like the one above).
Post-Release - If we're all not fed-up with PyTFall - Proper Tile engine. (Also, maybe by than Eliont has perfected his BE, it is supposed to be a proper tile engine by concept).

PS: As I've already said, we can put couple of maps in Beta or even Alpha as easter eggs. It's just seems impossible to mass-produce them with all the other stuff we have planned.

PS2: Lack of actual tiles obviously also kills any possibility of randomized dungeons. We can only add that with proper tile engine.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 28, 2014, 01:27:45 PM
The developer is probably quitted, nevertheless he had a couple of fun ideas here (http://www.pinkpetal.org/index.php?topic=2111.0), if you missed it. Like "flirt" or "rape" battle skills during battles with female characters. Reminds me of some other flash rpg, where you had to beat demonesses on their "field" using similar skills.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 28, 2014, 02:17:28 PM
The developer is probably quitted, nevertheless he had a couple of fun ideas here (http://www.pinkpetal.org/index.php?topic=2111.0), if you missed it. Like "flirt" or "rape" battle skills during battles with female characters. Reminds me of some other flash rpg, where you had to beat demonesses on their "field" using similar skills.

For beta? We don't even have a "rape" tag right now, bdsm will look out of place. For specific monsters we could specify pics, there is a very similar game, also with RPG maker where you go around beating girls to get them to join your party.

I am almost done with my first glance at BE code, there some parts of it that are very complex (that might take weeks/month to fully understand, at least to me but hopefully we'll never need to edit them) and it's all intertwined but MUCH better structured than I've expected. Rows might be a bit more of a pain to add than I've originally though but I'll figure it out.

I am not likely to have any more time for project or studying BE until the weekend except for a few more hours tonight. I'll see if I can finish 4 last files of the BE and download CW's update.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 29, 2014, 12:27:14 AM
I wonder if such sysem could be used to capture monster/random girls during fights.

Btw, he doesn't use rape pics there, only sex ones, sometimes with sad/scared faces, sometimes with happy faces depending on context. Out tag system already can handle it.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 29, 2014, 01:15:18 AM
I wonder if such sysem could be used to capture monster/random girls during fights.

It should.

Btw, he doesn't use rape pics there, only sex ones, sometimes with sad/scared faces, sometimes with happy faces depending on context. Out tag system already can handle it.

Noted.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 31, 2014, 07:27:31 AM
Can characters and mobs battle sprites move during special attacks? I mean something like that (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP3U_8ACoNU) (not so good, of course).
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 31, 2014, 08:36:35 AM
Can characters and mobs battle sprites move during special attacks? I mean something like that (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP3U_8ACoNU) (not so good, of course).

With bit of codding, yeah, sure. You could even do something similar to the video with simple sprites if given enough time to write a decent transform code (but it would be easier to put in a video I think...). They already move by the way, kind of a little jump they call "Bob" in the engine.

PS: You can throw """sm/mars""" from CWs DB folder into your chars, you'll get the fire arrow attack with extra sound and animation.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on February 01, 2014, 10:18:54 AM
Now then, my thoughts about elements concept.

1) I think it will be too complex system if we'll have both absolute and relative resistances for each element, like in d&d, so we probably need elemental affinities. It should not be mandatory though, both characters and mobs could be neutral.  Neutral characters may eventually acquire it after some training or using items, or even change it.

2) Magic defence is not required at all if we'll use several levels of elemental affinity. For example, three levels: -30% incoming and +30% outgoing damage at 1, 60% at 2, 90% (or 99%, or even 100%, depending on game balance) at 3.
This way undead will have 3 lvl dark affinity, but the opposite element, light, will damage it for 90 (99, 100)% more.

3) I cannot decide if we need to separate wind from lighting  :(

4) If you want more complex system, we might add double or triple affinity, and unique spells for it in the future, like that cool Dust style in Naruto that disintegrates matter is consists of earth, wind and fire elements.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on February 01, 2014, 10:28:15 AM
Now then, my thoughts about elements concept.

1) I think it will be too complex system if we'll have both absolute and relative resistances for each element, like in d&d, so we probably need elemental affinities. It should not be mandatory though, both characters and mobs could be neutral.  Neutral characters may eventually acquire it after some training or using items, or even change it.

2) Magic defence is not required at all if we'll use several levels of elemental affinity. For example, three levels: -30% incoming and +30% outgoing damage at 1, 60% at 2, 90% (or 99%, or even 100%, depending on game balance) at 3.
This way undead will have 3 lvl dark affinity, but the opposite element, light, will damage it for 90 (99, 100)% more.

3) I cannot decide if we need to separate wind from lighting  :(

4) If you want more complex system, we might add double or triple affinity, and unique spells for it in the future, like that cool Dust style in Naruto that disintegrates matter is consists of earth, wind and fire elements.

1) Agreed.

2) Sounds good.

3) Less work if we do not, can always be done later.

4) Would be cool, but once again, lets do 2 first and keep adding to it like we always do.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on February 01, 2014, 11:00:57 AM
Onwards, we probably shouldn't consider magic stat and affinities during brawls in brothels. You won't use Chain Lightning against ordinary citizens at your own establishment.
So you always need some muscle, not mages only, no matter how strong they might be.

I've found a decent picture (http://caneleb.deviantart.com/art/Ze-Elements-150442291) for general elements system. Characters and mobs will have air, water, fire, earth, light or darkness affinity, subaffinities (like heat and magma) sound more like schools of magic, same for time and space. I guess we'll use them too eventually to sort spells in the book if nothing else.

We might need a separate, hidden element, or maybe a resistance of some kind for poison.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on February 06, 2014, 04:52:20 PM
(fire>wind>lightning>earth>water>fire).

Without lighting, is this still sound?

Dark/Light are separate and neutral doesn't have strength/weakness?

I want to set weaknesses and strength at random between 0.4 - 0.6 and 1.4 - 1.6. Luck not factored in here, that can be used for critical hits with normal weaponry if I figure out how to do that (think that might already have).

Edit: Bit messier to code, but should fire have a modifier vs earth? Or just the neighboring pairs? I'll try to do the neighboring pairs for starters tomorrow...

Edit 2:
@ Dark

No wait... Fire for example should be strong against everything, weak vs water and do 0 damage vs fire and hit @ normal damage vs neutral??? You were supposed to sketch us a concept...

Edit 3:

Maybe it would make sense to have darkness and light do 10% more damage vs neutral? Since those are not really nature elements?


Edit 4:

So I just sorta "went with the flow" as usual and got something like this setup:

--fire>air>earth>water>fire--

Within this chain, they all cancel themselves out, they all do reduced damage according to chain and they all do increased damage according to chain (bit counter-intuitive) since it's usually water-fire, earth-air and light-darkness pairs instead of the Naruto style chain... they do increased damage to rest of elements and normal damage to neutral.

--darkness>light>darkness--

Second chain, same rules only they actually do reduced damage vs neutral and powerful damage vs one another. Same damage vs all other elements.

Tell me what you think...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on February 07, 2014, 06:20:35 AM
--fire>air>earth>water>fire--
Yup, that's how it should work, since ice=water and air=lighting. While we could use classic setup (water<->fire, air<->earth), it would be too straightforward. Imagine a fight between fire and water elemental characters, it would be a massacre, since they are strong AND weak against each other at the same time.
We could add a tooltip here and there, so people would know about our elemental chain.

--darkness>light>darkness--

Second chain, same rules only they actually do reduced damage vs neutral and powerful damage vs one another. Same damage vs all other elements.
Sounds good. We may expand this chain post release if we'll decide to add more elements, like space/time.
Also majority of buffs should relate to light, and debuffs to darkness, so damage is not so important.

I'm still not sure what to do about poison though.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on February 07, 2014, 06:51:08 AM
We could add a tooltips here and there, so people would know about our elemental chain.
Sounds good. We may expand this chain post release if we'll decide to add more elements, like space/time.
Also majority of buffs should relate to light, and debuffs to darkness, so damage is not so important.

Tooltips may get faster soon and there are new suggestions on RenPy forums on how to improve the performance even now (I am not gonna go there yet cause it involves recoding and I am going to do that post Alpha anyway.) For explanation of elements, I would prefer an NPC instead of a tooltip. Fight vs Dark vs Light creatures/fighters will be like a slaughter :) Whoever get the first blow (highest agility), would have a considerable advantage.

I'm still not sure what to do about poison though.

Forget complex skills for now, poison is fairly useless because most fights end fairly quickly. Also we've done more than enough for the BE for the Alpha release. I want to try and add Critical Hit, make sure Elements run smoothly, add attack skillz and rig items to enable correct skills in the BE and be done with it. The only thing past that and before the Alpha = Adding new spells.

Post Alpha:
- Complex skills (Revive, Charm, Heal, Slow, Haste, Stop, Confuse etc.)
- Rows
- Range
- Dungeon style
- Better AI
- More alignments
- More animation capabilities
- Items in combat
- Complex battle scenarios (Multi stage, conditioned etc)
- More I guess.

If we go to deep into it now, we'll never get anything released, not mentioning that complex systems are very hard to design for and maintain. Unless development team increases in size, we might have to give some of that up in favor of systems like slave-training, events, storyline, quests and gameplay.

All and all, you can call the BE boring all you want, it's still better than SM, OW and WM... and more than acceptable for events/quests where combat is applicable.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on February 07, 2014, 07:12:30 AM
Fight vs Dark vs Light creatures/fighters will be like a slaughter :) Whoever get the first blow (highest agility), would have a considerable advantage.
Indeed. We could balance it by adding a bit of resistance to fire/air for light and earth/water for darkness affinities, for example. Maybe even some res to physical attacks for lvl3 light and darkness (undead, angels and demons are usually cannot be hurt that easily by normal weapons).
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on February 07, 2014, 07:28:49 AM
Indeed. We could balance it by adding a bit of resistance to fire/air for light and earth/water for darkness affinities, for example. Maybe even some res to physical attacks for lvl3 light and darkness (undead, angels and demons are usually cannot be hurt that easily by normal weapons).

Might work, when we get there, you've mentioned that you've added alignments to all unique/random girls but I cannot find new files. I got the updated mobs file btw.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on February 07, 2014, 09:43:36 AM
you've mentioned that you've added alignments to all unique/random girls but I cannot find new files. I got the updated mobs file btw.
In my db/girls/, all newest xmls and jsons are there and synchronized with my copies. Not every girl has an alignment btw, some of them are neutral.
Don't tell me your dropbox is closed again  :D
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on February 07, 2014, 09:51:19 AM
In my db/girls/, all newest xmls and jsons are there and synchronized with my copies. Not every girl has an alignment btw, some of them are neutral.
Don't tell me your dropbox is closed again  :D

Maybe I've just randomly opened 10 girls with unspecified neutral alignment or something like that...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on February 07, 2014, 09:53:33 AM
Dark elf is the first rg, and Kula Diamond from king of fighters is the first ug with affinity in alphabetical order.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on February 07, 2014, 10:21:52 AM
Dark elf is the first rg, and Kula Diamond from king of fighters is the first ug with affinity in alphabetical order.

Ok, I got those as well. After we set-up some spells, I need to improve arena initial buffups to account for alignments. I am nearly done with adding alignment and new stats (luck/charisma (not presently used)) + critical hit logic to the BE, just need to cook up a text pop-up on critical hit.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on February 22, 2014, 03:11:53 AM
Does anyone know a site with examples/have ideas on math behind the damage in BE? I don't have a lot of time today but if I fix damage in BE, fix items rewards in Survival as Dark intended it and maybe fix a bug or two, it'll be at least some progress.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on February 22, 2014, 04:05:18 AM
1 (http://www.gamefaqs.com/snes/588648-seiken-densetsu-3/faqs/13682), 2 (http://www.gamefaqs.com/snes/563538-chrono-trigger/faqs/14148), 3, (http://www.gamefaqs.com/snes/554041-final-fantasy-iii/faqs/13573) 4. (http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps/197341-final-fantasy-vii/faqs/22395)
A lot of other games have such faqs there as well.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on February 22, 2014, 05:37:00 AM
1 (http://www.gamefaqs.com/snes/588648-seiken-densetsu-3/faqs/13682), 2 (http://www.gamefaqs.com/snes/563538-chrono-trigger/faqs/14148), 3, (http://www.gamefaqs.com/snes/554041-final-fantasy-iii/faqs/13573) 4. (http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps/197341-final-fantasy-vii/faqs/22395)
A lot of other games have such faqs there as well.

Not what I was hoping for... NM. I'll see if I can just cook up some simple solution for the @.

All games and especially all good games seem to have one thing in common... they've been carefully designed, their formulas are based around their characters, monsters and other game elements. This is absolutely impossible to get right in the way we're working on PyTFall right now. We either decide post Alpha to properly balance the whole game, write a design document for all aspects like girls, MC, clients, Mobs, buildings, sources of experience/gold income/stats increases+decreases/items/traits and so on.

My gut tells me that something like that can take 3 - 4 month by itself if done properly. Otherwise this will never be anything close to balanced but still could be playable.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on February 22, 2014, 06:26:11 AM
All games and especially all good games seem to have one thing in common... they've been carefully designed, their formulas are based around their characters, monsters and other game elements.
We don't have too many elements to do such a thing right now. The current arena is a prototype, nothing more.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on February 22, 2014, 06:32:12 AM
We don't have too many elements to do such a thing right now. The current arena is a prototype, nothing more.

Usually one would build a document first and adjust as new stuff comes up but yes, we're prototyping most of the stuff at the moment.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on February 22, 2014, 06:35:22 AM
As far as I can tell, girlsmeets and brothels balanced much better than BE.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on February 22, 2014, 06:42:11 AM
As far as I can tell, girlsmeets and brothels balanced much better than BE.

I got the opposite impression :)
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Armegetton on February 23, 2014, 03:14:34 PM
Does anyone know a site with examples/have ideas on math behind the damage in BE? I don't have a lot of time today but if I fix damage in BE, fix items rewards in Survival as Dark intended it and maybe fix a bug or two, it'll be at least some progress.

... well, I'm literally at a loss for words. I just spend an hour and a half going over this in three examples and then my web browser changed pages and I lost everything instantly, I tried going back to it but .... *sigh* it's all gone lol.

Well, this sucks. but I'll try to super summarize this. wow, I'm pissed right now.

the 3 examples were:
fire emblem:
http://fireemblem.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_Formulas (http://fireemblem.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_Formulas)
dungeons and dragons:
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Attack_Damage (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Attack_Damage)
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Critical_Hit#Critical_Hits (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Critical_Hit#Critical_Hits)
and league of legends:
http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Armor (http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Armor)


I went over a lot about balancing stuff. But I think I'll just post this and wait for my patience to return.
Sorry, if it doesn't make any sense at the moment. I'll come back and edit it later.


______________________________

edit:

fire emblem:
it's formulas are really simple and straight forward. It uses x3 modifiers on (nearly) all crits.
<attacker's damage> -  <defender's defense> = <current damage>

crit chance was based off the 'skill' stat, natural class crit chance and occasionally a weapon bonus
<crit chance> = (<weapon mod> + <skill>) / 2 + <class crit>

this is shortened, but you get the general idea. Crits happen, a lot in this game. especially for your heroes.

balancing: the game is very broken in terms of defense and power. as health bars are usually very small 8 hp, 15 hp, etc. A single increase in power can mean 1-shotting opponents. Crits nearly always one-shot (due to the x3 mod).

Defense is the most broken of all, because it can literally remove all chance of taking damage. It will even show 'No Damage' when the hit connects as well. Just walk out into battle with 25 defense while the enemies have 15 power and you'll never have to worry about dying.

Other thoughts:
This game series was very interesting and cool because of a few things. Each class can only achieve 20 levels max, so stats stayed rather low. However, low tier classes could class change to a tier 2 class, resetting the level back to 1. You could do this at lvl 10, but obvious waiting until lvl 20 will get you 40 levels versus 30. The rock-paper-scissors classes, weapons and magic is pretty cool. and it helps because it's a chess-like field of battle. But like I said before it's made in favor of the player, but I suppose it has to be. otherwise, the game gets impossibly hard (see various secret hard modes, for hours of torture).

My final gripe has to be that stat increases on level up can really only be +1, and are TOTALLY RANDOM (weighted by class, but random all the same), this makes saving and reloading the game so your characters get the best level ups is actually the real reason I spent so much time playing, which is ... rather pathetic. (let's not do this ok? k, thanks)


dungeons and dragons:
formulas are complex, convoluted and just everywhere in general .... except for damage (go figure). There is a bonus modifier for pretty much everything, but it all comes down to the weapon.

Each weapon has it's own damage range directly on the item, the same with the critical chance AND crit damage itself. Your character may add some trivial bonus damage, but normally it comes down to the weapon.

Also, there's no such thing as defense. There are a scarce few damage reductions and they're all pitifully low 'Reduce all damage by 1/2/3/etc'. Instead all armor, all dodge, size difference, all these things get converted into this magical stat called AC (armor class)

And if you don't know, but the AC system is probably the most bullshit ever, seriously. It doesn't negate or reduce damage, no, it makes you completely dodge. Everthing.

Balancing: as you can guess, AC and chance to hit and completely broken. if you have tons of one or the other, it doesn't matter a whole lot what comes your way, as you can literally dodge everything and/or never miss. Though if you go the damage route, you will need a weapon strong enough to one or two piece things. But the rolls in this game, typically make the game challenging for players. Of course, there are people who understand the 'metagame' well enough to break in their favor, but 'rocks fall, the party dies' tends to happen to people who abuse the system too much.

Other thoughts: there's just too much random rolls to miss. it's difficult if not impossible to guarentee hits without having a high 'to hit' chance. Also, magic is gimped in early versions. yes, I know it's supposed to be 'role-play' but it doesn't match modern gaming very well. especially from a single player view point.


league of legends:
formulas are actually not that complicated, I will admit the diminishing returns part is annoying until you wrap your head around it.
and there are many bonus modifiers in place, but they're only there so players can customize their game. Also, all crits are x2 in this game unless stated otherwise.

balancing: while there is little to no damage variation or ranges, it still maintains its ability to be useable in tournament and competitive play. while there are no limits (currently) on the power stats, there are other things in place to prevent absurd stats.

limits: only 6 item slots (for weapons/armor/etc)
crit chance: maxes at 100% (obviously)
attack speed: maxes at 2.5 (per second, maybe not applicable to this project)
life steal: maxes at 40% (when you attack with your weapon and deal 100 damage, you can only be healed by 40% at maximum)
spell vampirism: magical version of life steal, same cap at 40%

other thoughts: while I really like their formulas,
<incoming damage> * <100 / (100+defenderArmor)>
and diminishing returns are cool. I'm not sure if it would help or hurt a single player traditional rpg style.


_____________________________


So basically, certain things have to be addressed. But its mainly:
How easy do you want it for players? (maybe have difficultly levels?)
What are max stats if any? (100 maybe?)
How much dependence do you want on weapons and/or armor (gear dependance)? fighting naked? is possible or easy way to die?
damage caps? (if any)
player skill, what does it do? weaknesses and knowing the enemies, does it help in battle? does playing smart actually help? or 'swing weapon' to victory is less headache?
and finally, how much do levels matter? can you kill something 2 levels higher? 5 levels? 10 levels?
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on February 23, 2014, 06:38:23 PM
So basically, certain things have to be addressed. But its mainly:
How easy do you want it for players? (maybe have difficultly levels?)
What are max stats if any? (100 maybe?)
How much dependence do you want on weapons and/or armor (gear dependance)? fighting naked? is possible or easy way to die?
damage caps? (if any)
player skill, what does it do? weaknesses and knowing the enemies, does it help in battle? does playing smart actually help? or 'swing weapon' to victory is less headache?
and finally, how much do levels matter? can you kill something 2 levels higher? 5 levels? 10 levels?

1) No idea, difficulty levels are not the priority at the moment.

2) No hard max caps but there are two maximums that are raised with the level, system is fairly complex, there is an explanation somewhere in the Errors thread I think.

3) Dieing is possible but is hard to achieve at current game state. Gear is at this moment is not transferred to BE directly. Only stats (including gear buffs) and type of weapon attack is read by the BE. Might be improved in the future but we're not there yet.

4) Damage caps... not really, there is little point in that.

5) Knowing the enemy would help a lot. Knowing what magic to use or what alignment the enemy has is important. There is no way of figuring that out at the moment so it's hack-and-slash or guess.

6) Some rewards like experience depends on the level. BE doesn't know levels of fighters at this moment. But as I've said already, levels raise max of stats.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on February 24, 2014, 09:34:25 AM
What I love in wm ex is its difficulty. You actually have to work hard there to not lose, not just lazily look at hentai pictures. However, proper balancing right now is impossible.

Mobs do not have levels, they work differently. As for npc opponents, you need at least some advantage in equipment to beat someone 10 lvls higher.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on February 24, 2014, 02:33:00 PM
What I love in wm ex is its difficulty. You actually have to work hard there to not lose, not just lazily look at hentai pictures. However, proper balancing right now is impossible.

WM-EX did that at cost of great constrait of chocies in the beginning of the game. Also money kept flowing in much like in WM after business operation was setup (that might not be a bad thing btw).

Proper balancing might be possible but it'll delay the @ even further... I have some ideas on that.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Armegetton on February 24, 2014, 03:06:07 PM
It's just my opinion, but shouldn't the early game be incredibly easy in all aspects?

While I understand that there are many well-versed gamers who play, I feel like it shouldn't chase people away by running them into the giant wall of 'learning curve'.

As long as players don't over extend their reach too fast, a game should generally be relatively forgiving early on.

Don't misunderstand, I completely agree with Dark about
not just lazily look at hentai pictures.

But from what I've seen with the original brothel sim, the early game was actually the most difficult part. Once you got past a certain point, you were really just waiting for money to buy or upgrade whatever is next. The reason why it was annoying later on wasn't because of difficulty but because it was death by spreadsheets and micro managing.

While I did enjoy my plays of wm, I never really understood what I was supposed to be doing. I think I finally started doing the gangs thing, but it was after I had like 40 girls already.

I don't think players should have their hands held as they play through an entire game, but I do think that games should be upfront about how they can be played.
Basically, being intuitive.

For example, if a player never battles and only plays the sim and brothel parts, that's all fine and good. but the player shouldn't be finding out about rpg battles at the end game.

That's just me though.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on February 24, 2014, 03:15:51 PM
...

Well, that's more or less how the game is planned.

It will be easier to add difficulties when the system is set. As for different paths player can take while playing, I don't want to force any specific one, even not the brothel management path but that can only be achieved after more paths are actually available.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: CherryWood on February 24, 2014, 06:36:57 PM
It will be easier to add difficulties when the system is set. As for different paths player can take while playing, I don't want to force any specific one, even not the brothel management path but that can only be achieved after more paths are actually available.

Maybe we could do something like "impress 6 out of 10 important people in the city" goal while approval of each of those 10 NPC's would be tied to a bit different gameplay style (arena wins, high class of service, number of customers, relationships with girls, slave training...)
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on April 17, 2014, 06:20:21 PM
The Battle Engine is already in there.
It's probably possible to generate a dungeon like with WM, only offer 2 choices.
1. For a job of dungeon hunter (for money, stuff and girls)
2. Or the player goes in on his own and navigates the dungeon.

I can probably render some wall images for the sides or in front that sort of thing.
That way you generate a Ultima Underwold kind of dungeon.

The player can come across different things, girls, monsters, treasures, make a puzzle or a shrine that refills AP for max ap.
Like every event takes one AP point (fighting a monster.. ap point.. fighting a group 1 ap point. opening a treasure one Ap point.

You could have doors with keys and even have a few events of meeting enemies or girls by maybe making a default trigger.
So when a girl is in the dungeon in the xml and either randomly give the girl an event if it is the player.. (maybe tease when it's the girls).

We can use the BE for the fights and probably give players another way of generating cash before the taxes come along.

Let me know what you think.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on April 18, 2014, 04:04:45 AM
It's a possibility. We haven't decided what to do with dungeon exploration yet (the system you describe vs the rpg-maker style). It's very difficult to make/gather resources for both.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: CherryWood on April 18, 2014, 04:25:58 AM
It's a possibility. We haven't decided what to do with dungeon exploration yet (the system you describe vs the rpg-maker style). It's very difficult to make/gather resources for both.
For me both seems complicated. I would be content with just VN-style dungeon (=like our current forest exploration), just moving from one static background to another.
I would prefer improving the BE instead (add skills that will turn it into something more then just clicking on attack).
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on April 18, 2014, 04:45:43 AM
Well, if Xela is able to code it, and Xipomus is able to render for us resources from the scratch, then we lose nothing.

Though it's hard to imagine a forest with walls and doors, as well as any other open space, so we'll have to either use both EE or abandon the forest...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on April 18, 2014, 01:32:33 PM
Forest is possible too, to render. Will have to picked some more forest resources.. but should be doable.

The forest demo was the idea i had with dungeon. But with a forest you usually have more open space... dungeon is usually more closes so easier to have it look good. But that's just my idea.

If you want some different forest stuff, i can render some things for a test. If you like it we can discusses what you guys want in the forest and what is possible.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on April 19, 2014, 05:14:11 PM
Forest is possible too, to render. Will have to picked some more forest resources.. but should be doable.

The forest demo was the idea i had with dungeon. But with a forest you usually have more open space... dungeon is usually more closes so easier to have it look good. But that's just my idea.

If you want some different forest stuff, i can render some things for a test. If you like it we can discusses what you guys want in the forest and what is possible.

I'd actually prefer current forest to a rendered one! Dungeons are completely separate from that.

Where I stand on the actual dungeon exploration:

- Algorithms to generate random environments or predetermined environment thought json/xml are all in my head and ready to be implemented.

- Most of RPG-Maker resources are basically at our disposal but it's still a lot of work (Tiled software). I've toyed with it myself and I've personally have confirmed that it will work out for us (pretty auto-tiling included).

- Since Dark have failed in cracking the dungeon crawling on the Alice soft game and before Xip offered to render some textures, I was at a loss on where we can get the graphics for the true "3D Crawler".

- As far as coding/workload is concerned, there is virtually no difference in Python between the RPG-Maker and "3D-Crawling" types. I give you my word that I'll be able to code both if the graphical/logical resources are provided. There is almost 0 difference in complexity in between the two types.

- I recon we'll have to keep an improved current variation of "forest" exploration to "Look" for the dungeon or other cities. In depth dungeon exploration will take form as we move forward with development... If Xip will be able to render graphics we require or someone rips them from a pre-existing game, we have a choice between RPG-Maker type and "3D-type", before that, we have RPG-Maker type only, as I've said, I've worked with that and tiled and was able to create very good environments under that context! I cannot create a lot of those myself, but if other dev team members will chip in, I expect that we can make it work.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on April 19, 2014, 05:49:07 PM
Personally I find the RPG maker tiled stuff boring... but that's me.
What i suggest is making it a 3d view with prerender pics with a alpha (transparent) part of the pic.

Like say when you enter a cave/dungeon the dungeon is calculated on what it will be (some random, so quest based)
For instance. You enter the cave/dungeon you see a hallway ... with to sides rock/wall.  You can only exit of move north. (the engine sees opening north walls east and west and shows the pics for that)

You move north. you have 2 choices north and east. (engine shows opening north and east).
You move east.. you see a chest . (i could render a falling blade that could show some times and do a random amount to damage) and a way east.

You go east again.. you see a locked door north and a unlit torch to the east. Also you can go south
You click on the torch, it pulls down (prerendered anim) and the doors opens.

I have a cell you could put the battle sprite of a girl behind the bars (i could render seperately so you can overlay the cell bars on the battle sprite) in which she asks for help. When you try to free her and orc of something shows up.

That sort of thing.

You can probably use a lot of stuff from the forest exploraton setup.. that is what make me think of it, combined with the battle engine.

But i'll leave it to you guys to discuss. I'll start building some test stuff tommorrow.


Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on April 19, 2014, 06:23:55 PM
Personally I find the RPG maker tiled stuff boring... but that's me.

But i'll leave it to you guys to discuss. I'll start building some test stuff tommorrow.

Yeah, I hear what you're saying! For every 3D type game, there are like 300 RPG-Maker types. It's definitely not a decision that I can make without CW/Dark. One single and overwhelming pro towards RPG-Maker type is that the amount of resources readily available for that is outright "purrfect". We want lava, we get lava, we want city, we get city, we want forest, we get forest, we want castle, we get castle. It doesn't depend on anyone, we just have it, if anyone is willing to invest 15 - 30 minutes that is required to convert from RPG-Maker tiles to PyTFall tiles (within click/result type of conversion (no coding skillz required at all)), it's just there. There are no buts and if's...

On the other hand, even I, who likes RPG-Maker stuff, find the whole deal boring as hell :(

There is no way around that either, there are simply too many RPG-Maker types around. Doesn't even matter if real RPG-Maker resources are used or not! Dark is the main advocate of the the exploration/combat system in the game so it's his opinion that matter most in this case. Let's wait for what he has to say. Basically if we go with 3D Type, we'll be bound to whatever you can render. If we go with RPG-Maker type, we have a commonwealth of RPG-Maker resources to work with... It's just there (Lets not forget the 1000+ independent drawn/developed tilesets either), noone can take it away from us. It's an important decision to make... Lets give it some time.

Basically, 3D rendered dungeons are way more awesome and rare but we give away a good amount of freedom in development to roll with that. After the tagger fiasco, decision might not be as simple... we're not in any rush so lets give it some time :)
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on April 20, 2014, 04:12:42 AM
First of all, I'd say we should use several layers to create a world.
For example, something like this for the global EE when moving between cities and other locations (it's a global map from Agarest):
(http://s001.youpic.su/pictures/1397937600/thumb_40adfb6a249ac2a61799392b1b63fe20.png) (http://youpic.su/view.php?id=s001.youpic.su/pictures/1397937600/40adfb6a249ac2a61799392b1b63fe20.png)
I believe there is a similar BE in renpy, we probably could adapt it. Almost no resources needed as well.


As for the local EE, you probably right about availability of resources. I'm still sure that we should use RPG-Maker tiles though, maybe forest-type EE (hidden tiles + VN view) is everything we need.

And I still think that we should try to use first person view for BE. No need for battle sprites, more backgrounds available.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on April 20, 2014, 05:06:40 AM
First of all, I'd say we should use several layers to create a world.
For example, something like this for the global EE when moving between cities and other locations (it's a global map from Agarest):
(http://s001.youpic.su/pictures/1397937600/thumb_40adfb6a249ac2a61799392b1b63fe20.png) (http://youpic.su/view.php?id=s001.youpic.su/pictures/1397937600/40adfb6a249ac2a61799392b1b63fe20.png)
I believe there is a similar BE in renpy, we probably could adapt it. Almost no resources needed as well.


As for the local EE, you probably right about availability of resources. I'm still sure that we should use RPG-Maker tiles though, maybe forest-type EE (hidden tiles + VN view) is everything we need.

And I still think that we should try to use first person view for BE. No need for battle sprites, more backgrounds available.

Global map might be a pain, it's not easy to find a decent one.

Why do you need a BE for global map I didn't understand. I imagine we use our forestlike exploration to move around locations (world), our normal BE for encounters and some form of a dungeon (3D/RPG-Maker type).
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on April 20, 2014, 05:31:21 AM
Because if you need to go through 30 screens of the forest maze every time you want to go to another city, or some cave for example, you'll think twice before even trying? And then another 30 screens to return home...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on April 20, 2014, 05:41:40 AM
Because if you need to go through 30 screens of the forest maze every time you want to go to another city, or some cave for example, you'll think twice before even trying? And then another 30 screens to return home...

Come on... don't tell me that you cannot come up with a good way to mitigate that in 5 secs :D

You explore once, than you can skip to important locations you've already been at. We've discussed all of that.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on April 20, 2014, 06:03:19 AM
Yup, a global map is a good way to mitigate it. It is pretty, it is intuitive, it even can have random encounters (both mobs and events with npcs).

Like, after you find an elven city while exploring the forest, the icon of the city appears on the map.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on April 20, 2014, 09:13:47 AM
You can always use the BE you have now when you travel through the map, instead of adding a new one.. only with a background that is logical for the space in the forest you are occuping

That way when the battle happens, players see the same stuff as in the arena only with a difference background and different nmi.

Just a thought
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on April 20, 2014, 09:22:26 AM
Nope, I mean using that BE as a EE. Renpy has one BE that looks very close to my screenshot, I think we can use it (or make our own, with less options, but less complex as well) to travel between various locations.
Of course when you encounter an enemy, it should use the same BE with appropriate background for combat, that goes without saying.

I'll see if I can find a decent global map tomorrow. I doubt we need a whole world map, a continent or maybe a big enough island should be sufficient.
If you can render it, it would be great btw.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on April 20, 2014, 10:44:51 AM
Had to go search for a low poly high quality texture 3d model for a map.

Found one that i'm still not completly happy with but rendered for show.
Included in this post is the rendering with an unbiased render and a lot of tuning of the texture.

Did some after work in photoshop to hide edges because the mesh was missing some parts.

Let me know what you think and what direction I should take with the render. (Examples would help).
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on April 20, 2014, 12:03:23 PM
Yup, that looks promising. Though water seems a bit unnatural along the shore, but maybe it's just me.

What ideally should have a global map:
* Various types of terrain, as many as possible. The city is standing on the river (we even have a beach), and we already have a forest. Plains, mountains, wastelands, volcanoes, some roads like on this map would be useful too.
* Probably no objects, like cities, caves and so on. Maybe except the main city, where our events take place. We will add additional objects on the map, but they should be hidden at first.
* If Xela and Cherry have any requests for a global map, it's a good time to mention them  :)
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on April 20, 2014, 02:10:36 PM
Or instead of a global map you could make an "adventure" guild/office in the city that offers ways to the caves, dungeons, haunted castles/villages or dark forests.

The dungeon part I suggest was something that you could place under the castle in the main city view.

I'll start to experiment with a global map anyways, but think about it and get back to me.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on April 21, 2014, 05:22:36 AM
There will be more than one city anyway. It would be strange to travel between cities only via guild, I think, so some kind of global map is needed anyway.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on April 22, 2014, 06:56:58 PM
I've been playing around with the map yesterday and today.
And gathering the stuff to make it. (Not as easy as it sounds unfortunately)

Question to all is. Do you want to make the global map random like with tiles (coz I have to build is tile wise/ part of map wise anyways) or just a one time map. (Then i do the tiling one in photoshop).

Let me know and i'll start building small parts or bigger parts.

Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on April 23, 2014, 03:21:20 AM
I've been playing around with the map yesterday and today.
And gathering the stuff to make it. (Not as easy as it sounds unfortunately)

Question to all is. Do you want to make the global map random like with tiles (coz I have to build is tile wise/ part of map wise anyways) or just a one time map. (Then i do the tiling one in photoshop).

Let me know and i'll start building small parts or bigger parts.

Would Cartographer work? It should have everything required?
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on April 23, 2014, 05:15:58 PM
Would Cartographer work? It should have everything required?

If DarkTi agrees i'll check it out. Looks promising... https://secure.profantasy.com/products/cc3_gallery.asp (https://secure.profantasy.com/products/cc3_gallery.asp)
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on April 24, 2014, 02:53:14 AM
If DarkTi agrees i'll check it out. Looks promising... https://secure.profantasy.com/products/cc3_gallery.asp (https://secure.profantasy.com/products/cc3_gallery.asp)

I've worked with it some time before, it's quite good for large scale maps. Plenty of youtube guides as well.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on April 24, 2014, 03:40:50 AM
Yup, looks interesting.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on April 24, 2014, 03:32:52 PM
Only question is do you want the global map to be one map... or parts of map that you can randomize...

Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on April 25, 2014, 04:09:35 AM
I don't understand what do you mean by randomized parts of map here.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on April 25, 2014, 07:10:10 AM
I mean like. Make parts of an enviroment like a desert and another part forest. Than you can randomize each gave.
That way you get a different map each game.

A bit lke tiling from RPG maker only using areas instead of tiles.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on April 25, 2014, 09:42:06 AM
Ah, I see. That's interesting idea, but it's probably up to Xela to decide.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on April 25, 2014, 11:51:47 AM
up to Xela to decide.

I don't really care either way but this is not something I'd do myself.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on April 26, 2014, 11:17:19 AM
Then let's avoid it.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on May 14, 2014, 04:24:33 PM
I've picked up the Campain Cartographer.. but to be honest the maps that come out of there aren't that good.
Probably for mini maps or something it would be good.

Grabbing a ingame render of Civ 5 would problaby give a better looking map that this stuff.
I'm building some renders to make some tiles from. Hopefully that will give it a better look.

Will get back to you, when i have the map and written the logic for it. (not much just some checking and a seperate image for showing and hiding stuff and highlighting certain things on the map).

After that i'll start looking at some dungeon stuff. I got some stuff already, but i'm trying to build a library so you can tile like an old fashioned 3d scroller.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on May 15, 2014, 03:45:54 PM
Oki, let me know if there is something concrete. I can't seem to find the energy to start with ST module and we got resources/content for nothing else atm.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on May 15, 2014, 04:15:57 PM
Oki, let me know if there is something concrete. I can't seem to find the energy to start with ST module and we got resources/content for nothing else atm.

ST module? Energy issues sounds familiar...
If you don't have the energy left.. i could focus on the arena. Made a few peeps cheering. Need a lot more though.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on May 16, 2014, 03:31:09 AM
ST module? Energy issues sounds familiar...
If you don't have the energy left.. i could focus on the arena. Made a few peeps cheering. Need a lot more though.

"Slave training"

We've discussed it to a good extend. It's not that I don't have any energy, the task of being both project manager and a coder takes it's tole. I think some form of an organization is required, just need to come up with something efficient...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on May 16, 2014, 06:20:50 AM
It's been awhile since the last update or any noticeable activity. I'm assuming that the project is suspended until this situation will change. Because without a coder all our work is useless.

If you want a new goal, EE/BE/LS are options as well.

Btw, I cannot find Eliont's blog anymore. Did he terminate his project?
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on May 16, 2014, 08:01:32 PM
"Slave training"

We've discussed it to a good extend. It's not that I don't have any energy, the task of being both project manager and a coder takes it's tole. I think some form of an organization is required, just need to come up with something efficient...

It's been awhile since the last update or any noticeable activity. I'm assuming that the project is suspended until this situation will change.

If you want a new goal, EE/BE/LS are options as well.

Btw, I cannot find Eliont's blog anymore. Did he terminate his project?

Hmm apparently I missed a lot while working.. coz i have no idea what you are talking about with the ST, EE, BE en LS.
If you want to organise you have bitbucket to organise the project. That way you can also have an issue list and assign who is busy with. You also link it to the mercurial i think. Dunno for sure.. have been a project member not a leader on it.

it's bitbucket dot org as a website.
If that doens't work, I can always have a look at a wordpress project management system.
I'll pick up a website for it if needed

For now going to concentrace on the map, unless one of you say you rather focus on something else first.
The dungeon you could add in the city you have already.. so you don't need to have a map for it.

Let me know.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on May 17, 2014, 06:21:59 AM
I'll take a look at bitbucket. Elionts blog was shut down for content violation of some form I think, last version was blogged to otaku only.

It's difficult to say if the project is suspended or not, I do have time to work on it, even thought it's less than before but every time that I want to code something, I get lost in what's need to be done and it what order :(
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: CherryWood on May 17, 2014, 08:47:57 AM
It's difficult to say if the project is suspended or not, I do have time to work on it, even thought it's less than before but every time that I want to code something, I get lost in what's need to be done and it what order :(
My school exams just finished, so now I should have some time for this again. But because it's two months from last time I did something, I'm not sure what to do too.


Like, I know that before I wanted to improve rest and job reports a bit (better or new image-to-text matching), but I figured out that the current image tags are no good for that.
But to change tags, I need DarkTl's approval and also we decided to not change them until ST
And also there was this new day screen remake thinking, after what I'm not sure it this is even worth looking into this anymore as the code may change for that.


For arena teams or quest, I believe our BE would need to be improved first, because now it's just not interesting enough to work on. (It need at least more skill types if nothing else)


I know I want few more brothels, but I'm waiting for DarkTl, as he said that there will be some new bgs to choose from. (I have some myself, but bigger selection to choose from is always nice)
But that may be an excuse, as I'm not really sure about the balance issues there...


And even simple stuff like making new girls is loosing it's appeal when I know that the tags are not ok... so I'm kinda lost too
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on May 17, 2014, 01:23:42 PM
Yup, I will continue to collect resources anyway. Even if Xela is going to ominously delete our repository and disappear, I'll just join some other team. It's too late for me to stop  :D

BE could use more skills for all elements indeed, you do it better than me, so go ahead.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on May 17, 2014, 01:53:43 PM
The only way I'll disappear is that if I accidentally die, even if I want have any time for the project or loose interest, I'll still be around or at least post a message.

Otherwise CW's issue is my own as well, I just don't know what to work on. The options are too numerous and project is not very well organized at the moment (we don't even have a new TODO list). Maybe it's because stuff like taxes/girlsmeets is still unfinished and unbalanced and I see little point in going forward with so many loose ends in the existing modules.

We need to choose a direction as well:

- Work on SlaveTraining/improving Tags system
- Work on BE/EE
- Work on content/improving existing modules (Arena/GM/Brothels etc.)
- Write extensive and documented modding guides (try to get some new people involved)
- Work on improving interface
- Take a fresh direction/start a new project (using a lot of existing code)

============================
We need to pick something and make sure everyone is on board, then we'll get thing slowly moving forward again.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on May 17, 2014, 02:26:07 PM
The only way I'll disappear is that if I accidentally die, even if I want have any time for the project or loose interest, I'll still be around or at least post a message.

Otherwise CW's issue is my own as well, I just don't know what to work on. The options are too numerous and project is not very well organized at the moment (we don't even have a new TODO list). Maybe it's because stuff like taxes/girlsmeets is still unfinished and unbalanced and I see little point in going forward with so many loose ends in the existing modules.

We need to choose a direction as well:

- Work on SlaveTraining/improving Tags system
- Work on BE/EE
- Work on content/improving existing modules (Arena/GM/Brothels etc.)
- Write extensive and documented modding guides (try to get some new people involved)
- Work on improving interface
- Take a fresh direction/start a new project (using a lot of existing code)

============================
We need to pick something and make sure everyone is on board, then we'll get thing slowly moving forward again.

If I take the above points in consideration.. i would say it probably a wise idea not to add to much ideas to the current concept.  So no adding dungeons or forests and stuff till the base has been optimized more.

So start with fixing/tuning the current game and add to the BE (still content already in the game). (I don't count adding backgrounds or girls as new content, that's part of the game already)

To get started with this.. it's probably wise to start a list somewhere with issues.
That way anyone can grab an open issue and try to solve it.

I think bitbucket can work for that. If not i could test some wordpress project managers and see if one of those will do.

Or a topic is this forum with just issues. A topic for each issue. It's a bit much, but it would show which issue is done. Which isn't.

That's my view on things. Dunno how you guys feel about that.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on May 18, 2014, 02:00:59 AM
We should improve tag system to finalize packs. And that requires ST.
One of the main goals for BE/EE is to capture rmgs. It's useless without ST of some kind.
Modding is pretty simple, we do have third party girls, MCs and even items, despite the alpha stage.

A new project... I don't know, we are not that far with the current one to start it.

So far we have slaves only because other games have them. We don't have any infrastructure for them at all, they just exist. Maybe we should drop the idea, at least for now. Even without enslavement things like mind control for everyone or dungeons for rmgs still could be used.
Actually, there is mind control in wm, but very incomplete and useless on the background of free and simple enslavement.

Aaaaand I ask again. I cannot find Eliont's blog anymore. Did he terminate his project?
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on May 18, 2014, 03:57:39 AM
We should improve tag system to finalize packs. And that requires ST.

It doesn't, we cannot finalize all packs but we can develop new tag logic. CW already has some really good ideas in that department.

Two problems we can solve right now:
- Make tagging more intuitive and easier to explain
- Reduce insane amount of database requests due to exclusion (add a number of single tags that exclude a lot)
- Make sure the system is user(coder)-friendly

Just one or two packs would have to be retagged at first to see how all of that works out. Only afterwards we'll add ST required tags and finalize the packs.


One of the main goals for BE/EE is to capture rmgs. It's useless without ST of some kind.

One and ST can be made simple temporarily (leaving the girl to train with Blue for a couple of weeks for example).


Modding is pretty simple, we do have third party girls, MCs and even items, despite the alpha stage.

Yeap but it's not explained anywhere and modding capabilities go far beyond that.


A new project... I don't know, we are not that far with the current one to start it.

If you remember at the start we wanted to make a simple simbro remake and then create a new game drawing from that experience. That was abandoned as we decided to slowly morph the game into a more complex version of itself. Maybe that was not the way to go?


Aaaaand I ask again. I cannot find Eliont's blog anymore. Did he terminate his project?

Elionts blog was shut down for content violation of some form I think, last version was blogged to otaku only.


...

Yeap, maybe finalizing/improving some stuff would be a better bet for now.

Some things left undone:

- Improved version of tagging system
- Taxes are too unbalanced
- Next Day reports got to be summarized and prioritized
- Arena progression needs to matter more
- More content is required
- Girlsmeets need to be finished (and rebalanced)
- Items gotta be rebalanced (to account for the new stats system)
- Mobs alignment needs to be revealed in bestiary
- Info on teams should be available by paying off a "stat-keeper" (I am thinking Kabuto NPC)
- There are still a couple of smaller bugs left
- Difficulties should be added
- More interactions
- More difference between Free/Slave
- Shelter/Food for girls
- Quests and Tasks

================
Prolly more...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on May 18, 2014, 04:11:08 AM
Well, ST is required for a simbro remake anyway, while we can live without in a more complex game.

Basically, we don't know how to make ST, up to the point that the project has stopped. Meaning that we should drop it and/or replace by mind control (MiC) or simple wm-like dungeons.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: CherryWood on May 18, 2014, 04:44:17 AM
As majority of my work was always related to just adding girlpacks somehow, my personal preferences of what i would like are:

- tags (so we can redo the packs to ok state and make guides)
- more BE skill types (like weakness, poison, bodyguarding, stronger on 50% hp etc.... to allow creating more interesting arena teams)




Can't say much about ST, as I only played SM3 or simpler games oriented on one or very few girls and I don't have any idea what that should be in game with a lot of girls to manage.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on May 18, 2014, 12:43:38 PM
SimBro didn't really have ST, did it?

It's not that we don't know how to make it, it's that game is becoming more and more imbalanced with every module, we need to determine prices/costs/rewards and etc. In a document form first. I was really hoping that someone other than me will do it :)
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on May 18, 2014, 01:12:25 PM
Remakes are supposed to be more advanced. Otherwise they are the same thing with a new gui.

We don't have a concept for ST, only ideas from other games. I'd say that means that we don't know how to make it. Really, I have my own ideas for pretty much any system except ST.

Moreover, since you want to fix balance, slaves create major balance issues. Just like in wm, they are much more profitable than free ones, and if we try to compensate it somehow (upkeep for example), it becomes very illogical. I guess that's why other games focus on one or another, while wm was never properly finished.

In our case it's not easy to get free girls, so slaves are even better than in wm.

We could replace ST with just a dungeon though. All girls are free, but if you want to play as an evil character, MC and his guards could beat someone and lock her in a dungeon and, well, do ST, except the girl will never be a slave, just hopelessly broken or dead if you do it wrong. Maybe with additional fear stat or something. And the law won't be on MC's side as well, etc.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on May 18, 2014, 01:28:32 PM
Remakes are supposed to be more advanced. Otherwise they are the same thing with a new gui.

We don't have a concept for ST, only ideas from other games. I'd say that means that we don't know how to make it. Really, I have my own ideas for pretty much any system except ST.

Moreover, since you want to fix balance, slaves create major balance issues. Just like in wm, they are much more profitable than free ones, and if we try to compensate it somehow (upkeep for example), it becomes very illogical. I guess that's why other games focus on one or another, while wm was never properly finished.

In our case it's not easy to get free girls, so slaves are even better than in wm.

We could replace ST with just a dungeon though. All girls are free, but if you want to play as an evil character, MC and his guards could beat someone and lock her in a dungeon and, well, do ST, except the girl will never be a slave, just hopelessly broken or dead if you do it wrong. Maybe with additional fear stat or something. And the law won't be on MC's side as well, etc.

Instead of completely removing the slaves or stay with just upkeep you could try to either limit the slaves learning or how fast they learn. For instance a free girl learn 1x per turn in school, but a slave 0.5x per turn. That sort of thing.
Upkeep for slaves should be about the same for even one, but with taxes you could give it a slave tax which is a extra % of the earn money.

That way the player must decide if he want's cheap labor that doesn't earn much at least in the first while and a big part of the earnings goes to taxes, cost, ect.

Of course the dungeon part can add to find free people in a different way than the normal meet and greet.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on May 19, 2014, 11:11:16 AM
It doesn't solve the main problem: lack of clear concept. If you have one in mind, feel free to share.

Meanwhile I propose to create a dungeon with some of Valet's options for a start, deal with tags once and for all and heavily improve Next Day reports. You could disable taxes for now, I guess.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on May 20, 2014, 05:11:19 AM
Next day reports could be recoded I guess, one summary screen, class instead of a list and better handling.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on May 20, 2014, 09:50:12 AM
I could try to determine prices and other balance stuff in a document form. The thing is that slaves are already there, they are part of balance and a major balance issue too.
Until we either dismiss slavery or create a complex enough micromanagement and psychology simulation for them, while free girls will be free of it. In other words, ST.

Anyway, as long as we have progress, anything is fine. Otherwise, the project will be dead before long.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on May 20, 2014, 12:59:34 PM
I could try to determine prices and other balance stuff in a document form. The thing is that slaves are already there, they are part of balance and a major balance issue too.
Until we either dismiss slavery or create a complex enough micromanagement and psychology simulation for them, while free girls will be free of it. In other words, ST.

Well, try. It definitely wouldn't hurt, I'll see if I can put in some time into next day screens tomorrow.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on May 20, 2014, 05:43:30 PM
I could try to determine prices and other balance stuff in a document form. The thing is that slaves are already there, they are part of balance and a major balance issue too.
Until we either dismiss slavery or create a complex enough micromanagement and psychology simulation for them, while free girls will be free of it. In other words, ST.

Anyway, as long as we have progress, anything is fine. Otherwise, the project will be dead before long.

Personally i think if you add ST you are changing the game from a management kind of game to more micro management game.. and managing every slave is probably not something you want done.

In WM you have the dungeon to make them behave or brand, but that's about it. Not a lot of micromanagement. If you go a route where you micromanage every slave ... it will be hours before you can switch one day.

A better idea would probably be have the slaves earn less but increase the amount with skill and happyness.
In the end if the slave is very happy and skilled she can earn as much as a free girl doing the same.

That way you avoid the big time micromanagement but still make a difference.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on May 21, 2014, 03:10:45 AM
Too bad Eliont doesn't make his game in English. He could use futanaripalace or even our forum then.

In WM you have the dungeon to make them behave or brand, but that's about it. Not a lot of micromanagement. If you go a route where you micromanage every slave ... it will be hours before you can switch one day.
If we consider ST as a full-fledged alternative to brothels, then it should have about the same amount of micromanagement and profit, or at least proportional.
Also there will be a new occupation for slave trainers, thus maybe trainers should work with average slaves, while MC could concentrate on elite ones.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on May 22, 2014, 03:42:45 PM
Too bad Eliont doesn't make his game in English. He could use futanaripalace or even our forum then.
If we consider ST as a full-fledged alternative to brothels, then it should have about the same amount of micromanagement and profit, or at least proportional.
Also there will be a new occupation for slave trainers, thus maybe trainers should work with average slaves, while MC could concentrate on elite ones.

That's the question do you want a fully fledged alternative or just a way to make slaves behave.. or even capture girls and train to be obedient to you, without the mark, so you have to do put some effort before you can use a captured girl.
Same with slaves that ignore you commands. Girls that are free require you to be stronger then them to send to the dungeon.

But never the less. Let's first focus on fixing and tuning the current stuff in the game. That way it will be more playable and then we can focus on adding new stuff.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on May 24, 2014, 02:29:26 AM
Since brothels will be optional part of the game, ST should be a fully fledged alternative indeed. I personally like the idea when you don't have to use brothels to play.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: livingforever on January 20, 2015, 10:59:22 AM
Hi!
Continueing discussion from here (because you're definitely not talking about items anymore  ;) ):
The rpg type BE I actually really like and don't believe it to be foreign at all.
Well, let's see what currently is bad - then we can determine if a new system is necessary (or if the problems can be solved with the old one).
Functionality wise, take a look at Adventurer Manager (http://store.steampowered.com/app/280320/) - it has a very simple combat system, comparable to what you already have in place, but more fleshed out.
The UI still isn't good though, please don't copy that.
Have fun!
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 20, 2015, 12:04:05 PM
Just forgot. We'll find backgrounds, I don't worry about that. I am done with work for today, going to take a break and start looking into BE options.
Right. That's why we had to use that specific, customly rendered bg for arena, because it was so simple to find a decent one.

Current BE has high demands for bg. It should have a certain angle of drawing, so that characters don't look strange.
What we need is a BE that could be used anywhere, on any bg. You have been attacked on the street, BE uses that street bg.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 20, 2015, 12:24:38 PM
Hi!
Continueing discussion from here (because you're definitely not talking about items anymore  ;) ):Well, let's see what currently is bad - then we can determine if a new system is necessary (or if the problems can be solved with the old one).

Sounds like a plan.

   
  • Skills - Current skills are very boring, I think I don't need to tell you why; characters need (partially unique) skills that are actually interesting

Skills are not an issue. It's not about changing the BE, it's about adding content to it.

   
  • UI - Damn, the current UI is so horrible I don't know where to start complaining; it needs to be redone from scratch. Right now, everything is wrong, colors, placement, style, it's a mess; and yes, the UI is a very important part of the system - why do you think iPhones sell better than Android smartphones?

Once again, matter of restyling. This is basic stuff, I would have been done with it long time ago if I had a clue on what good design for BE UI is. Gismo is responsible for all the recent updates to game ui and he's gone as well.

   
  • Enemies - Similar to skills, enemies need to be a lot more diverse and interesting

Once again, content. Also a matter of adding written content and goals/quests/jobs to the Arena for example.

   
  • Loot - Rewards need to be more consistent, some randomness is fine but at the moment it's too much

I left these thing up to Dark and CW. But it's content once again.

   
  • Leveling - Experience progression needs to be less linear, which is somewhat off topic here

Agreed, we've decided to keep it "linear" (it's not actually linear but close to it) until gamedesign took coherent shape so we can tell what the options are.

Functionality wise, take a look at Adventurer Manager (http://store.steampowered.com/app/280320/) - it has a very simple combat system, comparable to what you already have in place, but more fleshed out.
The UI still isn't good though, please don't copy that.

Assume we can do anything except 3D renders (yet, they are planning to add that next year I think), any effects, placements, animations, transitions in the confinements of the graphical resources we have or can find on the net. What does a decent UI look like? Maybe even an example from youtube...

===============================
Basically we're on the same page here, general BE design (I love), while UI + Content need updates.

I just pushed 3 or 4 commits so I can fall back to server version of code and completely mess up the BE.

My plan as it stands now:

1) Kill stats system if the BE (there is very deep integration of what this into the engine that is not really acceptable to us, this is the part I am worried about the most)
2) Instead of overcomplicated bridge, provide instance of our own classes to the BE and use whatever required
3) Add new battle scheme that handles rows

I am going in with an axe instead of a scalpel... if something proves to difficult, confusing or time consuming, there will be our own version written from scratch.

Right. That's why we had to use that specific, customly rendered bg for arena, because it was so simple to find a decent one.

Current BE has high demands for bg. It should have a certain angle of drawing, so that characters don't look strange.
What we need is a BE that could be used anywhere, on any bg. You have been attacked on the street, BE uses that street bg.

We had three options for the Arena. I found another kickass option somewhere on the game forums some time ago, could prolly traced it back if something depended on it.

When we were offered a render I thought it would suck, but why the heck not...? Turned out not just great but also animated :D

If you're suggesting one of those engines that are focuses off logic, display just the portraits and have a small picture of the area in the middle while the ui is places on left/right sides, I hate those designs :(

Otherwise, if you're talking about using different sizes of sprites with specific placements on the BG, I don't mind.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 20, 2015, 12:48:55 PM
So far we didn't get a permanent artist. Assuming that you can be attacked anywhere, we either need a unique battle background for every zone, or we should stop to use unique bgs everywhere.

There are a lot of games that don't try to show an appropriate bg, they just draw a neutral battlefield right on current bg.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 20, 2015, 01:59:59 PM
So far we didn't get a permanent artist. Assuming that you can be attacked anywhere, we either need a unique battle background for every zone, or we should stop to use unique bgs everywhere.

There are a lot of games that don't try to show an appropriate bg, they just draw a neutral battlefield right on current bg.

LoL We don't have a load of "permanent" positions filled in :) Problem here is partly lack of concepts and designs. I can't assign anything to Thewlis for example even though he's prolly a far better coder than I. Just saying "ST"/"BE" is sadly not enough, specifics and constants in the design are required... it's a large part of the reason why the team is this difficult to expand. People are willing to invest time in game development if it's a hobby that they enjoy, it's a whole other matter if you're required to make decisions and lead a development of a concept/module/game. That takes up more time that actual coding!

Now it's really time to take a look at BE :D


Neutral battle field is also an option that I've always kept in mind, just felt like for the modules like the Arena, we should have proper stuff.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 20, 2015, 02:15:56 PM
Can you tell the same about writers or artists? I don't see Klaus or Gismo anymore, and it's not like we done with texts or interface.

I'm tired of it. Don't count on any new bgs for BE from me except those in dropbox. I hope you like them.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 20, 2015, 02:51:42 PM
Can you tell the same about writers or artists? I don't see Klaus or Gismo anymore, and it's not like we done with texts or interface.

Yes... I Can.  Just for graphical resources we have E, Gismo and maybe even Russian guy who created wood Skin for WM (He's a professional graphics designer). X Is also logging in once in a while. + you can always ask around on the Deviant for help. Our guys all offered to help.

For writing... People are PMing me all the time, you need to see my PM list to get a hang of it... the problem is that I can't give them proper assignments and they disappear shortly after that. I don't know the writing requirements of Interactions system as well as you or CW. I know the code and the functions created for it but the texts required are beyond me.

When you're asking people to get a hang of Mercurial, figuring out the finer points of the (modern, not Alpha release) game and it's internals... it's a bit overwhelming and they just go away. I always consider this a problem of the development, we need to be able to set specific tasks for professional or semi-professional artists/writers without expecting them to know the inner working of the game.

**The only way I've ever seen working is:

Set the exact writing/Graphics requirement that will last and post it in the request section on the forum or give assignment to a specific person :D I don't know if you're aware of now, but we once had English teacher from Japan who did the complete spelling/grammar check of the whole giirlsmeets :D and pushed...

I'm tired of it. Don't count on any new bgs for BE from me except those in dropbox. I hope you like them.

I do like them. But you need to understand that these problems can be solved. And I am tired a bit as well... I think that it's partly because it'll soon be an year since we've released something to be evaluated by the "masses" and of the constant improvement to logic that we plague ourselves with. I think we've getting to a point where we can call the concepts "final" and move to other matters at hand...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 20, 2015, 02:57:24 PM
LOL

It's actually a bit funny when the guy "we can't count on" is online shorty after your post :D

Xipomus: Online right now or less than 15 minutes ago  :P


I don't really believe that he'll tell us to go f#ck ourselves if we have a specific request!
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on January 20, 2015, 03:01:01 PM
Nope... just describe what you want... and i'll have a look what i can make.

My render pc is working on a comic at the moment and is rendering 8-12 hours a day.. but on the weekend i can find a hole i think.

The better the description the better the end result.

Let me know.

Ciao,

Xip
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 20, 2015, 03:07:48 PM
The better the description the better the end result.

LoL "Heel Erg Bedankt"!!! (I and X both speak Dutch like I and Dark both speak Russian :D )

And that's my point exactly... I can't really describe what we need! Not mentioning that we don't really need anything at the moment that I am aware of other than concrete game concepts or game logic.

It's a process... that requires time and thought!
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on January 20, 2015, 03:13:33 PM
On the weekend i'll download the lastest version again and will look what kind of bg's are used now.
And what kind of universal backgrounds could work for fights outside the arena.

Hopefully this time i can get the version to compile without errors
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 20, 2015, 03:19:25 PM
Hopefully this time i can get the version to compile without errors

That's not likely. It will compile without errors I think but we're square in the middle of retagging and a complete change of tagging concept moving from JSON to faster loading directly from filenames.

It's not the best time to "get back into the game" :(

I think the only people on Earth who know what's up with the modern version are I, Dark, CW and Thewlis (Who figured the whole thing out without any hints btw :D)
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 21, 2015, 02:22:10 AM
Oh, but I did gave an assignment to Klaus about a month and half ago (more lines for those parts of girlsmeets that don't have enough, I explained it in details).
If that's not a task for writers, then what is? I can handle girls descriptions on my own  ::)

But you need to understand that these problems can be solved. And I am tired a bit as well...
I'm tired of searching for bgs, I mean. I don't think that you do it too from time to time  :)
 If only there was some database that specializes in bgs from visual novels...

I can't really describe what we need! Not mentioning that we don't really need anything at the moment that I am aware of other than concrete game concepts or game logic.
But I can. In order to freely and effectively use existing battle engine anywhere we need a set of backgrounds for all types of territory, with the same resolution and drawing angle that has our background for arena.

We can start with existing ones. It's city street, beach, forest, building. By building I mean cases when there is a battle in a tavern, inside brothel or some warehouse.

**The only way I've ever seen working is:

Set the exact writing/Graphics requirement that will last and post it in the request section on the forum
Let's try it. I'll create a thread, throw there cleaned girlmeets file and ask to help with it.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 21, 2015, 03:24:25 AM
Now let's talk about BE, or rather what kind of options we could use there to make it more interesting.

- Rows. That's a classic FF feature that may or may not exist in some parts.
It has who variations:
1) Characters in the back row deal two times less damage with weapons, but receive two times less damage from weapons too. Thus it is for mages only.
2) In the back row you can only use ranged weapons (or magic) and can only be attacked by ranged weapons (or magic) too as long as the front row is not dead.

- Spells and mp. In many games they don't use mp as a number, they use it as a set of castings. Like, at level 30 you can cast two lvl 3 spells, three lvl 2 spells and five lvl one spells per day.
Of course magic is more powerful there to be useful enough.

- AP, action points. Right now we use another FF system with those bars. There are games where characters use AP in battle, and we already have AP!
Every turn you get all AP you have and can spend them on combat actions like attack. The more powerful skill you want to use, the more AP it needs.

- In some games you can change active party members during combat, not 100% freely of course. Like, 3 active party members and 2 reserve ones.

- Skills for weapons (maybe close/ranged) and magic, like our sex skills.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on January 21, 2015, 04:04:34 AM
We can start with existing ones. It's city street, beach, forest, building. By building I mean cases when there is a battle in a tavern, inside brothel or some warehouse.
Let's try it. I'll create a thread, throw there cleaned girlmeets file and ask to help with it.

I'll build some 3d sets so i can render these on the weekend. I'll start with the city street then beach, ect.
Do you want something moving in the background as in the arena? (the cages) or just a static image?

For reference ... which city street drawn pic is currently used? This so i can try and match the lighting and stuff.
Won't be exactly the same (3d and drawn) but i can make it close.

Let me know and i'll see what i can do.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 21, 2015, 05:46:19 AM
...

Ok, lets do the thread thing and see if that works. Would have been of help about three weeks ago when two writers offered help.

...

Right now player can choose between three maps, so hold off the renders until we release and poll. It would suck if you spend your computer time on something that might turn out good but not useful.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 21, 2015, 05:54:04 AM
Animated backgrounds look good, but they are not necessary. Cages were rather simple, but I'm not even sure what to animate in the forest, for example. It would be too much work to make all trees stagger in the wind.
If you feel like it, animation is welcomed, but backgrounds themselves are much more important and useful.

No matter what kind of street we will use, there is no doubt that we will use beach and forest bgs, and they all look similar. So you can start there.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 21, 2015, 04:18:56 PM
Ok... so what do we need BE to do (This is for myself as well as anyone else who wants to offer ideas, the sooner the better):

1) Have a main loop.
2) Set up a background.
3) Set up battle sprites.
4) Do stuff to battle-sprites and track their positioning to change rows and allow for special effects.
5) Have Factions.
6) Have some form of AI.
7) Have attacks and spells.
8) Calculate damage/effects from attacks.
9) Have layers so stuff can be properly displayed.
etc, etc, etc...

It's a lot harder than I thought... if anyone has requests/ideas, lets hear them now.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 22, 2015, 02:26:37 AM
I wrote a post with possible options for BE mechanics on the previous page, I think you missed it. It's just some decent ideas from various games that I played before.

Other than that, it still possible to make something like this (http://www.gamesidestory.com/wp-content/gallery/jeu_lordsofxulima/lords-of-xulima-05.jpg), I personally think that it will be easier to code. It has rows too, and you can even move characters between those 8 positions below during battle. There is also a list of actions on the right side (order depends on agility).
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 22, 2015, 06:09:33 AM
I wrote a post with possible options for BE mechanics on the previous page, I think you missed it. It's just some decent ideas from various games that I played before.

I have 50 posts per page setting so I did not miss the post :)

Other than that, it still possible to make something like this (http://www.gamesidestory.com/wp-content/gallery/jeu_lordsofxulima/lords-of-xulima-05.jpg), I personally think that it will be easier to code. It has rows too, and you can even move characters between those 8 positions below during battle. There is also a list of actions on the right side (order depends on agility).

It's not easier to code, it's exactly the same in coding difficulty.

Problem is that I dislike this setup, for some reason I always thought of it as inferior to what we've use in Jake's BE.

===
Otherwise I am really beginning to appreciate Jake's BE, there are too many options and things both small and large to consider, far more than I've imagined. Still I am leaning in favor of our own BE setup so we can have exactly what we want with the minimum effort. Maybe even in the future we can add moving about engine as well.

I want it to look more or less the same as Jake's BE, at least that's what I am working forwards to at the moment. With better effects and more options obviously.

Ok, so Your suggestions:

Now let's talk about BE, or rather what kind of options we could use there to make it more interesting.

- Rows. That's a classic FF feature that may or may not exist in some parts.
It has who variations:
1) Characters in the back row deal two times less damage with weapons, but receive two times less damage from weapons too. Thus it is for mages only.
2) In the back row you can only use ranged weapons (or magic) and can only be attacked by ranged weapons (or magic) too as long as the front row is not dead.

1) I want new BE to work in this way but for the sake of the future, we should set range for combat items from 1 - 6. Maybe in a few years I can come up with a kickass move about design as well. It's not that much harder but it requires a lot of work in terms of resources.

2) Maybe... other option if to allow "active skills" like shielding. I think that my option is better but prolly harder to work with.

- Spells and mp. In many games they don't use mp as a number, they use it as a set of castings. Like, at level 30 you can cast two lvl 3 spells, three lvl 2 spells and five lvl one spells per day.
Of course magic is more powerful there to be useful enough.

Sounds complicated, we\re not going to mess with it now but we could add levels to spells (as in character below level x cannot learn the given spell).
 
- AP, action points. Right now we use another FF system with those bars. There are games where characters use AP in battle, and we already have AP!
Every turn you get all AP you have and can spend them on combat actions like attack. The more powerful skill you want to use, the more AP it needs.

I conciser this to be a bad idea, AP in PyTFall are not the same as they are in those games + it adds sh!tty and confusing logic to the battle (at least it's the way I see it now).

- In some games you can change active party members during combat, not 100% freely of course. Like, 3 active party members and 2 reserve ones.

This is just logic. I dislike the idea for the initial version. Also I do not wish to mess with 3 member team logic either. Problem is that this is not an RPG game where BE gets half the job done so we can't afford this kind of stuff.

- Skills for weapons (maybe close/ranged) and magic, like our sex skills.

If you've meant seduction/confusion skills, that I am all for it. Multiple skills for the weapons I cannot see at the moment but maybe it will work.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 22, 2015, 07:33:46 AM
I want new BE to work in this way but for the sake of the future, we should set range for combat items from 1 - 6.
That's a bit too much  :D
I thought about two types, melee and ranged weapons.

If you ever played disciples 2, then you understand what kind of BE I have in mind. Ranged characters can attack anyone there, and melee can only attack the front row until it dies, after that they can attack back row too. The main difference between ranged and melee characters is health, those for the front row are much more tanky.
We basically can copy disciples 2 BE, it's quite a good yet simple one.

Btw how many party members you want in battle party?

Oh, and don't forget about magic (and magic weapons). I mean our elements.
There should be resistances.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 22, 2015, 07:51:35 AM
That's a bit too much  :D
I thought about two types, melee and ranged weapons.

For now, yes. But as far as the weapons/spells go.

If you ever played disciples 2, then you understand what kind of BE I have in mind. Ranged characters can attack anyone there, and melee can only attack the front row until it dies, after that they can attack back row too. The main difference between ranged and melee characters is health, those for the front row are much more tanky.
We basically can copy disciples 2 BE, it's quite a good yet simple one.

I never have. But bgs for it look even more complicated that what we use now. But the setup should be possible to mimic without any fuss with the system I am trying to code in now.


Btw how many party members you want in battle party?

3.

Oh, and don't forget about magic (and magic weapons). I mean our elements.

Items will have to be updated. But it's just extra logic in this case.

=====
So far I am am trying just to put everyone on the screen and track their positions correctly... and use a combination of screen language and python for the effects.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 22, 2015, 08:59:59 AM
But bgs for it look even more complicated that what we use now. But the setup should be possible to mimic without any fuss with the system I am trying to code in now.
Of course we can use any bg and any gui, I mean mechanics only.
I don't really like our action bars, I'd prefer purely turn based system. But I guess it is possible to use them no matter what  ::)

Battle is divided into turns there, every turn every character can do something once, those with higher agility go first. They changed it a bit in the third part, with high enough difference in agility between you and enemy the quickest character can act more than once, I'm not really sure what is better for us.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 22, 2015, 09:18:20 AM
Of course we can use any bg and any gui, I mean mechanics only.
I don't really like our action bars, I'd prefer purely turn based system. But I guess it is possible to use them no matter what  ::)

Battle is divided into turns there, every turn every character can do something once, those with higher agility go first. They changed it a bit in the third part, with high enough difference in agility between you and enemy the quickest character can act more than once, I'm not really sure what is better for us.

I am still trying to figure out positioning and sizing. Usually one of your systems requires some form of a timer and the other is is just simple turns based on agility. I'll start with the simpler second option (which I think is the one you prefer).

There are dozens of smaller decisions to be made... but it's too much to write them all out for discussions, I never expected a simple BE to be this demanding.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 22, 2015, 09:34:24 AM
Yeah, it is unfair to compete in pure speed and reaction with pc, it always will be faster  :D
So if we gonna use real time system, we'll also have to simplify it by adding delays everywhere.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 22, 2015, 09:46:53 AM
Yeah, it is unfair to compete in pure speed and reaction with pc, it always will be faster  :D
So if we gonna use real time system, we'll also have to simplify it by adding delays everywhere.

I generally dislike real time... But without it on the other hand, skills like Poison/Regen have very little meaning or not even possible at all.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 22, 2015, 09:51:30 AM
Nope, disciples 2 has both, and they are pretty powerful there. They work every time when the character gets a turn, reducing / increasing health depending on effect's power.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 22, 2015, 09:58:42 AM
Nope, disciples 2 has both, and they are pretty powerful there. They work every time when the character gets a turn, reducing / increasing health depending on effect's power.

So faster characters get screwed by this? If you get extra turns cause your are faster, you get damaged a lot more? Or is that accounted with the mechanic you've described earlier where agility simply decides who goes first and no character can have two turns before the loop goes over all characters?

*LoL I just realized that most of the games that I like work in the similar fashion, same character from the same team cannot go twice until loop iterated over his teammembers and at least one enemy had a go :) I think this is a good way to get it done...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: livingforever on January 22, 2015, 10:14:14 AM
Hi!
Actually, most initiative based systems have a breakpoint that allows a second turn per round. Effects trigger per round, not per turn.
Have fun!
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 22, 2015, 10:29:59 AM
*LoL I just realized that most of the games that I like work in the similar fashion, same character from the same team cannot go twice until loop iterated over his teammembers and at least one enemy had a go :) I think this is a good way to get it done...
Yeap. They did changed it in the third part, very quick characters can act more than once. But regeneration effects works in the same way, so everything is up to the player.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 22, 2015, 10:37:05 AM
Well, rounds are a lot easier to work with than real time I expect... going to start working on be tonight after a break.

I think that positioning I got figured out, at least in my head but I can translate that into code fast enough. Next is turn/rounds logic. After that attacks and effects and conditions.

One thing I am completely clueless about are items, attacks and magic tracking and design but I expect that to get better after I got a chance to think about it...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 22, 2015, 11:54:50 AM
Let's outline possible combat options.
- melee and ranged weapons and rows.
- normal attack and defense actions, also battle skills like double strike or steal that require vitality to use.
- spells, both single and mass that require mp to cast. Also there could be elemental weapons. All this require elements check.
- health and KO status. Healing spells and items, perhaps resurrection spells and items?
- status effects that can change stats (buffs, debuffs) and force actions, like petrifaction (no actions) or berserk (auto attack).
- possible run option, with a chance to succeed.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 22, 2015, 12:00:25 PM
Let's outline possible combat options.
- melee and ranged weapons and rows.
- normal attack and defense actions, also battle skills like double strike or steal that require vitality to use.
- spells, both single and mass that require mp to cast. Also there could be elemental weapons. All this require elements check.
- health and KO status. Healing spells and items, perhaps resurrection spells and items?
- status effects that can change stats (buffs, debuffs) and force actions, like petrifaction (no actions) or berserk (auto attack).
- possible run option, with a chance to succeed.

Sounds like insane amount of work... dodging can also be fun.

I know that a lot is possible, I just don't know what should I try to get done before the next release (if anything at all, we can easily survive another release with Jake's BE while slowly working on our own).
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: livingforever on January 22, 2015, 02:10:34 PM
Hi!
I know that a lot is possible, I just don't know what should I try to get done before the next release (if anything at all, we can easily survive another release with Jake's BE while slowly working on our own).
If you get it done in time, it gets done in time. If you don't, nobody will complain (except for me of course, I always complain).

...
Don't forget agro management (targeting, taunts, etc.).

I think I didn't answer your request for a video of a good UI, did I.
Anyway, I don't have a video at hand, but here are two approaches that are reasonable:

Seperate input and output
Examples: RPGMaker, Pokemon

The basic idea is to strictly group controls and display.
Control layout is done with one directional menus (usually left to right -> top to bottom).

Advantages:
On-display input
Examples: No concrete for your scenario, many 2.5D games use it, e.g. Blackguards

Generally, this approach keeps the amount of controls minimal at all times, only displaying what is needed.
Control is done using default button actions (e.g. left-click an enemy to attack) and a control wheel (also known as commo rose from the Battlefield series) that pops up around the target and displays appropriate actions (e.g. right-click an ally to bring up a circular menu with healing and defense options).

Advantages:

My preference definitely is the second approach, simply because it feels more like you're actively participating in battle (while the first option feels more like a simulator).

Naturally, there are lots of other control layouts, but they either wouldn't work for your combat design or they would be a pain in the ass to implement (and possibly not work with the character sprites).
Have fun!
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 22, 2015, 03:45:12 PM
Kickass BE for Ren'Py "exactly?" like Dark wanted :)

http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=30095

...

I've never played a game with an option two (I mean not one with a BE, it sounds somewhat similar to some strategy games). Going to take a look at the loop and the queue. Maybe come up with attack skill and some basic targeting before I fall asleep.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 23, 2015, 07:25:49 AM
Kickass BE for Ren'Py "exactly?" like Dark wanted :)
Yeah, angry sheep are musthave for kickass BE.

Btw no matter the camera view we could use characters portraits near health bars, and even change them depending on health level.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 23, 2015, 07:35:18 AM
Btw no matter the camera view we could use characters portraits near health bars, and even change them depending on health level.

That's child's play if we can gather some good resources or at least come up with a decent layout. All ui information overlays well be screens so it's very easy to get what we like.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 23, 2015, 08:27:57 AM
BTW: I think it's a bad idea to allow using skills/spells outside of combat. Like restoration spell will make all restoring items obsolete without another confusing system where a character can only preform each spell x times per day which requires more tracking dictionaries or unique instances of spells for each spell.

In any case I am not planning to add this any time soon (if ever).
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 23, 2015, 10:11:21 AM
It always rises questions why they can heal in battle and not outside of it. Better to not make any healing/restoration spells at all then.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 23, 2015, 10:54:24 AM
It always rises questions why they can heal in battle and not outside of it. Better to not make any healing/restoration spells at all then.

Answered by it being a matter of game design. I can come up with a load of "unexplainable" things in the game (almost any game for that matter), like in 3D games, why can't a fit man climb over any wall or climb up a tree while he can jump, run like a wind and sometimes use magic.

Maybe we'll add it someday but I doubt it.
=================

Going to put a few hours into BE this evening and maybe work on it for a bit longer tomorrow, so far I got just a bit over 200 lines of code.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 23, 2015, 11:03:18 AM
Disciples has this too. There are characters who can freely heal in battle (not even mp is needed), but cannot outside. It only leads to long battles, when you kill everyone but the weakest enemy and heal your party to full while defending before killing the last enemy.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 23, 2015, 11:11:34 AM
Disciples has this too. There are characters who can freely heal in battle (not even mp is needed), but cannot outside. It only leads to long battles, when you kill everyone but the weakest enemy and heal your party to full while defending before killing the last enemy.

I have no problem with this :)
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 23, 2015, 11:20:41 AM
Ok, if you say so.

I guess elemental defence could work in percentages. Fire 1 means 30%, Fire 2 means 60%, Fire 3 means 90% of fire damage will be ignored.

Another option to to make it work like in Dis: first fire attack, no matter its power, ignored completely, and that's it. In our case it could be 2 attacks for fire2 and three for fire3.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 23, 2015, 11:25:30 AM
Ok, if you say so.

I guess elemental defence could work in percentages. Fire 1 means 30%, Fire 2 means 60%, Fire 3 means 90% of fire damage will be ignored.

Another option to to make it work like in Dis: first fire attack, no matter its power, ignored completely, and that's it. In our case it could be 2 attacks for fire2 and three for fire3.

That's an option, I would really like to avoid multiple alignments... I haven't even started with damage mechanics but there are so many ideas and possibilities... This is an overkill...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 24, 2015, 07:33:40 AM
On hits, do we want writing like:

Quote
Our Amazing Hero landed Critical Strike on poor sod called "Goblin Archer"

in a pop-up window or

effects like bouncing text (same  as in Jake's BE)?
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 24, 2015, 07:56:42 AM
Can't we just use a battle log, like here (http://torrentsgames.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Neverwinter-Nights-2-PC.jpg)?
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: CherryWood on January 24, 2015, 08:25:41 AM
Well, my favorite system looks like this   (basically sengoku rance bs altered for single characters)
  (http://img24.cz/images/57417860993746098687_thumb.jpg) (http://img24.cz/viewer.php?file=57417860993746098687.jpg)
...I guess it's a whole different then what you aiming for  :)


 
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 24, 2015, 08:31:47 AM
Can't we just use a battle log, like here (http://torrentsgames.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Neverwinter-Nights-2-PC.jpg)?

As usual, your suggestion is "lets have it all and more" :)

I'll take a look at it...

I am almost afraid to ask:

1) How do you want damage to be calculated?

2) A more to the point question:
What do we do with targeting if everyone in the front row dies but melee weapons only have range of 1? I've seen two options that I could conciser acceptable:

- Everyone in the back row is moved to the front (annoying if you had one meat-shield and two mages for example).
- Everyone in the back row can simply be attacked as if they are in the front row.
======
What do you think?

Another question do we want a ChangeRow skill? Or should rows be fixed from game start?

This who row mess is faaaar more confusing to transfer into code than I've anticipated :(
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 24, 2015, 08:35:23 AM
Well, my favorite system looks like this   (basically sengoku rance bs altered for single characters)
  (http://img24.cz/images/57417860993746098687_thumb.jpg)
...I guess it's a whole different then what you aiming for  :)

Do you have a full-sized screen shot of this?

But I looks like that there are portraits and 5 members per team... instead of 3. This is prolly easier to code since there are no rows but graphics or the attacks are also less cool and many thing in PyTFall would have to be adjusted like a 3 team-members limit...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 24, 2015, 08:44:29 AM
Well, my favorite system looks like this   (basically sengoku rance bs altered for single characters)
  (http://img24.cz/images/57417860993746098687_thumb.jpg)
...I guess it's a whole different then what you aiming for  :)
I'm familiar only with one part of sengoku rance, but it is always a turn-based strategy, right? I figured our SE will be something like a turn-based strategy eventually, not BE.

However, you could describe here how it works, it's not too late to change anything.

As usual, your suggestion is "lets have it all and more" :)

I'll take a look at it...
I don't know, it doesn't seem difficult. You just write all those "Our Amazing Hero landed Critical Strike on poor sod called "Goblin Archer"" lines there, and add a scrollbar.

1) How do you want damage to be calculated?
Not sure yet. I guess it should be the difference between attack and defense, but normalized somehow. Can you take a look how it's done in Jake BE?

- Everyone in the back row can simply be attacked as if they are in the front row.
That's how it works in Dis, I don't see any problems with it.

Another question do we want a ChangeRow skill? Or should rows be fixed from game start?
It should be changeable outside of battle only.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 24, 2015, 09:16:02 AM
I'm familiar only with one part of sengoku rance, but it is always a turn-based strategy, right? I figured our SE will be something like a turn-based strategy eventually, not BE.

However, you could describe here how it works, it's not too late to change anything.

Well, that example looks like a BE doesn't it? Rance's version that I've played had on map mechanics paired with a BE where you had a leader and a army representing each character separately.

It should be changeable outside of battle only.

This simplifies things a bit...

I don't know, it doesn't seem difficult. You just write all those "Our Amazing Hero landed Critical Strike on poor sod called "Goblin Archer"" lines there, and add a scrollbar.

Yeah... but I wanted one or the other :) It doesn't matter, I'll make it work, my main concern with this is that GUI will get cluttered.

That's how it works in Dis, I don't see any problems with it.

Ok. It'll work like this than.

Not sure yet. I guess it should be the difference between attack and defense, but normalized somehow. Can you take a look how it's done in Jake BE?

Like this:

Code: [Select]
            damage = 0
           
            #calculate damage same as usual
            if (target.Stats.Defence < 1):
                defence = 2 - target.Stats.Defence
                damage = attack * defence
            else:
                damage = (attack/target.Stats.Defence) + 0.5
               
            # Get a random number between 0.8 and 1.2
            random = (renpy.random.random() * 0.4) + 0.8

            damage = int(float(damage) * multiplier * 10 * random)

Attack was basically the attack stat of the character * (initial!)multiplier for the skill (weapon/magic).

The multiplier you see in this code bit, is different and was added by me. It starts at 0 and than is changed by alignments (magic) or critical strike (for melee weapons). Just to settle all the alignments in the game and possibility of the Critical Strike, 100 lines of code are needed...

That's why I am asking what do you want to do with damage, we've mentioned many options and there are plenty more...

- Alignments for weapons.
- Skills for every weapon (focus on one weapon for better results).
- Multi-Leveled alignments for characters.
- Different attack skills per weapon.
- Skills (Haste/Regen/Poison and etc.) OR we can also move this to Magic spells.
- Items and their effects.
- and etc. etc. etc.

EDIT: Also row damage can be calculated in a number of different ways for magic and ranged weapons alike! I need to get some sort of general opinion of these thing before adding it...

We need to come up with the best possible options for the game that will be easy to understand and implements and filter out the rest.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 24, 2015, 09:58:39 AM
Kewl!

I almost got the targeting and positioning down :)
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 24, 2015, 10:32:23 AM
Well, that example looks like a BE doesn't it? Rance's version that I've played had on map mechanics paired with a BE where you had a leader and a army representing each character separately.
That picture is so small, I can't see what's going on there  :D
We don't have an army, so I don't understand how could it work for party vs party battles. Like I said, Cherry could explain it to us, and we may like it enough to change something or everything in our BE  :)

- Alignments for weapons.
makes their attacks elemental, but they still use normal weapon formulas to calculate damage after possible resistance/weakness script is implemented.

- Skills for every weapon (focus on one weapon for better results).
It is possible. We could use ranged small, ranged big, melee small and melee big skills. They suit our items perfectly.

- Multi-Leveled alignments for characters.
A tough question.

From the viewpoint of packs making there are characters who mastered two or more elements.
From the viewpoint of BE it makes things complicated, especially when it's two opposing elements.

First of all, what do you prefer? Percentages like in our original concept, or exhaustible defense like in Dis?
I don't even know how else they could possibly work.

- Different attack skills per weapon.
I lose the essence of this conversation. Do you mean skills like refinement, or skills like double attack?  :)
We should use different terms for them.

- Skills (Haste/Regen/Poison and etc.) OR we can also move this to Magic spells.
I'd like to use vitality in battle, not mp only. Haste sounds like a spell (unless you can open the eight gates from naruto  ::) ), Poison doesn't have to be a spell.

- Items and their effects.
Ok, here is another question. Do you want items that can be implemented on enemies, reducing their health, giving debuffs, etc.? Or you want them only for MC party?
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 24, 2015, 11:06:10 AM
That picture is so small, I can't see what's going on there  :D
We don't have an army, so I don't understand how could it work for party vs party battles. Like I said, Cherry could explain it to us, and we may like it enough to change something or everything in our BE  :)

CW fixed that.

makes their attacks elemental, but they still use normal weapon formulas to calculate damage after possible resistance/weakness script is implemented.

Maybe... This is interesting but it could be a very decent feature to be introduced in a future release. By your logic a fire mage, using a fire staff does not get added advantage? That's how it would work with Jake's BE...

It is possible. We could use ranged small, ranged big, melee small and melee big skills. They suit our items perfectly.

In terms of attacks, large or small weapons don't really matter.

A tough question.

From the viewpoint of packs making there are characters who mastered two or more elements.
From the viewpoint of BE it makes things complicated, especially when it's two opposing elements.

First of all, what do you prefer? Percentages like in our original concept, or exhaustible defense like in Dis?

I've only played one version, very long time ago so i don't remember how that works but battles there are almost the central part of the game, I doubt we can afford to maintain that level of logic for any one module.

Also we cannon really properly recreate natural alignments for everybody, some kickass characters don't even have them. If we stick with elemental concept, we need to realize that. Another options is to add "personal skills" (with some default) and have them advance + operate on per character basis (scrapping elements).

==
I can't tell you what I prefer because I am not sure how the exhaustible defense works.

I lose the essence of this conversation. Do you mean skills like refinement, or skills like double attack?  :)
We should use different terms for them.

I mean BE skills here (Be thread and all). In the above post I meant adding skills from BE as skills to the game mechanic, increasing their damage as user becomes more proficient at them. It's just a vague suggestion, there are far too many options here :(

So the original question was multiple skills per weapon (somehow), current logic does not anticipate it but it's also fairly flexible. This is just another vague suggestion.

We can just say skills/battleskills.

I'd like to use vitality in battle, not mp only. Haste sounds like a spell (unless you can open the eight gates from naruto  ::) ), Poison doesn't have to be a spell.

I didn't even think about using vitality once...

I am asking this because of a clutter on the interfaces, both in the game and in the BE ui that a lot of options may create...

Ok, here is another question. Do you want items that can be implemented on enemies, reducing their health, giving debuffs, etc.? Or you want them only for MC party?

Items reducing health in enemy hands will be a pretty shitty implementation. If such an item is used on MC even in a safe environment, game will end unless I put even more checks in the code.
I don't care otherwise, I don't recall playing one game where I would use items except those that healed/restored.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 24, 2015, 11:51:17 AM
Aha, I see it's another Touhou game. Well, I still don't understand what's going on there. There is some kind of grid 5x5, I have no idea what it does.  I guess those numbers, 30 and 29, are relative strength of parties or something like that.

It's not too late to use this kind of BE too, but I need to try it out. I don't mind any kind of BE as long as it's not repetitive, boring and way too simple. I'm gonna try it right now before deciding what to do.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 24, 2015, 12:00:59 PM
It's not too late to use this kind of BE too, but I need to try it out. I don't mind any kind of BE as long as it's not repetitive, boring and way too simple. I'm gonna try it right now before deciding what to do.

It might be too late... I wrote all the complex logic for rows, targeting and positioning for nothing if we go with this. This requires no positioning logic at all, just two vboxes with frames and buttons + some ui in the middle. I doubt that you need to move anything around there, so it's prolly simple enough to be a screen without any python code at all.

I don't know... I always thought of these portrait BEs as ancients and inferior to even simplest rpg types. From programming point of view that is definitely true... my preference would be to an unmodded Jakes version then to the one in Valet Pletej with portraits but far more complex mechanics (that I never really understood).

Although I'll admit that adding content to portraits is prolly super simple...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 24, 2015, 12:09:22 PM
Your vision is too narrow. We can use any type of gui and rows too, no matter base mechanics.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 24, 2015, 12:20:24 PM
Your vision is too narrow. We can use any type of gui and rows too, no matter base mechanics.

So you're basically saying lets get rid of backgrounds and most special effects and use portraits instead. I've been against that idea from the start. Rows with portraits and effects (besides simple damage/sound/status) will look really out of place.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 24, 2015, 12:22:50 PM
Oh god. No, I'm saying that we can use bgs, sprites and effects no matter what.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: CherryWood on January 24, 2015, 01:01:47 PM
Aha, I see it's another Touhou game. Well, I still don't understand what's going on there. There is some kind of grid 5x5, I have no idea what it does.  I guess those numbers, 30 and 29, are relative strength of parties or something like that.

It's not too late to use this kind of BE too, but I need to try it out. I don't mind any kind of BE as long as it's not repetitive, boring and way too simple. I'm gonna try it right now before deciding what to do.
I didn't mean this as a serious proposal, don't think it's suitable for us for many reasons, just wanted to show... I dunno now :D 

But because you asked:
That 5x5 box is relative distance between each character to determine who can attack who. It's Touhou, so air combat between flying magicians is taking place, and this is somewhat simulating 3D space. (you can be closing to one enemy and still keeping distance from others)
Not usable for us as its kinda ill-suited for interiors/dungeons obviously.

Otherwise it's very Rance-like, battle ends when action timer runs out, and it have the same more HP=more dmg formula.

Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 24, 2015, 01:07:54 PM
I didn't mean this as a serious proposal, don't think it's suitable for us for many reasons, just wanted to show... I dunno now :D 

But because you asked:
That 5x5 box is relative distance between each character to determine who can attack who. It's Touhou, so air combat between flying magicians is taking place, and this is somewhat simulating 3D space. (you can be closing to one enemy and still keeping distance from others)
Not usable for us as its kinda ill-suited for interiors/dungeons obviously.

Otherwise it's very Rance-like, battle ends when action timer runs out, and it have the same more HP=more dmg formula.

It's a nice system I guess, but you can always launch those planes from backrow :)

+ We might always add moving about engine for a dungeon... we can at the very least get resources for that easy. I think on map combat will be really awesome as well.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: CherryWood on January 24, 2015, 01:25:44 PM
As I said long time before, I think our BE would be great even as it is, if we just can squeeze in at least some tactics options and improve the interface. (a few different skills that are not just fireballs + elemental dmg sounds good enough for me)


And I don't think finding/creating battle BGs is a problem worth considering when designing BE...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 24, 2015, 01:34:46 PM
As I said long time before, I think our BE would be great even as it is, if we just can squeeze in at least some tactics options and improve the interface.
For a brother game, that's it. (But not that I would mind much if we want to turn this game into valkyrie simulator  :D )


And I don't think finding/creating battle BGs is a problem worth considering when designing BE...

Yeah, I agree. We need some random events and interesting attacks. BE I am trying to put together is a lot like Jakes RPG scheme.
===

LoL

I thought that I had targeting down but not yet :D

Never thought about that range=1weapons from back row should not reach back row of opfor even if there is noone defending them in the front row. That's a whole bunch of ifs/elifs until I properly wrap my head around this rows thing and can improve the code...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 24, 2015, 01:36:42 PM
Yeah, I downloaded it and fought a couple of battles. It might be a good base for other systems, like global SE or gangs wars. But it's not very suitable for pure BE.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 24, 2015, 01:42:50 PM
One thing that I'm not sure about is what to do with our double weapon items system inside of BE.
My thoughts are:
- Ranged weapons are supposed to be worse than melee in close combat.
- If you have ranged and melee weapons equipped, then you can swap them during battle and attack back row when needed.
- If you have two melee or two ranged equipped, then you use both of them when attacking, thus have more power. But no swapping.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 24, 2015, 02:09:08 PM
One thing that I'm not sure about is what to do with our double weapon items system inside of BE.
- Ranged weapons are supposed to be worse than melee in close combat.

Just like in Jake's BE, you'll have two attack skills from your weapon and small weapon.

- If you have ranged and melee weapons equipped, then you can swap them during battle and attack back row when needed.

That's not how I am coding it. Every weapon translates to the attack skill that can locate all targets in range either by my default method or by a custom one.

There are piercing attacks that can reach anyone in range no matter what. Without piercing property, front row will always "cover" the back row so characters there cannot be targeted at all. There are other filters like allies, enemies, single enemy and single ally. There is obviously range.

If there are two weapons, each with skills, there will be a choice of two Attack skills, each with their own targets.

- If you have two melee or two ranged equipped, then you use both of them when attacking, thus have more power. But no swapping.

That is a feature we an introduce with patches and updates. Right now every items can come with one battle-skill and every battle-skill and  each-own sfx and gfx.

What you're suggesting here we can introduce after we add matching items sets. For example a set of a sword and a dagger. Separated they are just normal sword and dagger attacks. Together they add a new combo attack.

Another option is to add a new type field to items, if both items are of the same melee type, damage of any of the battle-skills is increased.

In any case, I am not going to mess with this yet. Stuff like this can be added indefinitely until the code is too complicated to work with... Just while writing this post I got another two possible ideas for damage/items modifiers :D
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 24, 2015, 02:21:43 PM
I can't tell you what I prefer because I am not sure how the exhaustible defense works.
With water1 affinity character is invulnerable for one fire attack/spell no matter its power, after that it stops working until the end of the current battle; it's two attacks for water2 and three for water3.

Items reducing health in enemy hands will be a pretty shitty implementation. If such an item is used on MC even in a safe environment, game will end unless I put even more checks in the code.
I don't care otherwise, I don't recall playing one game where I would use items except those that healed/restored.
It's simple to imagine: a poison bomb, a set of shurikens, etc.
Though all this could be warriors skills (that require vitality to use) instead of items that you have to buy all the time.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 24, 2015, 02:30:38 PM
With water1 affinity character is invulnerable for one fire attack/spell no matter its power, after that it stops working until the end of the current battle; it's two attacks for water2 and three for water3.

Doesn't sound like a good way for simpler type of BE, this would prolly drag out the battle. I am in favor of multipliers.

It's simple to imagine: a poison bomb, a set of shurikens, etc.
Though all this could be warriors skills (that require vitality to use) instead of items that you have to buy all the time.

Hard to tell at this point.

We can have:
Weapon Skills: No reqs.
Personal Skills: Vitality points.
Magic Skills: MP points.

But that's once again a bit excessive, will require a lot more work and interface. I need to finish targeting and add something that calculates the battle damage so i can actually test advanced targeting.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 24, 2015, 05:15:00 PM
LoL

I am still figuring out rows. Prolly wrote a lot of code for nothing before figuring out better ways and erasing the whole thing. Being a bit drunk doesn't help either :(

What do we want rows to do damagewise?

Like what happens if a fighter in back row of one team hits the fighter in the back row of another team with different kind of magic/weapons?
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 24, 2015, 07:43:18 PM
Today ended in a weird way... I've started looking at Jake's BE again :D

With most functionality for the rows done, I am starting to think that it would not be too hard to try and move it there. While our own engine will be faster to develop and improve, Jake's offers moving about option where we could create a lot of interesting battle scenarios and that is bloody hard to recode from the scratch.

How useful do you guys think it might be? (very raw version can be tested with pytfall.arena.test() in the console (Shift + O to open the console). It would not be too hard to create a map with a river, small bridge and some scenery and have a fight from two sides trying to block bridge passing.

Or add a map with a lot of obstacles or a dungeon of some kind.

If you think that it has potential, I'll give modding Jake's BE to work with raws another show, if not I'll finish up basics for our own engine tomorrow. Personally I am in favor of trying to mod Jake's BE one last time to preserve moving about/path functionality, if I don't get pissed off at it's code again, it may actually be possible :)
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 25, 2015, 02:48:06 AM
Let's see.
- I like how maps done in Legends of Alkion. With more or less narrow passages and fog of war. They also have potential for random maps generation, this is very important for a team that cannot make manually every single location in the world.
You could try to take some code from there  :)

- I don't understand so far how can you use something like rows in a pure trpg engine where unites act independently and move in 2d space freely  :D

- I proposed in the very beginning to combine tactical map and usual BE. Like you have one or several parties and move them on trpg map, while after direct contact with an enemy party we launch usual battle engine until someone wins. Thus, trpg map serves as a EE, and BE is a BE.



@Xipomus: don't let our disputes to discourage you. We do need backgrounds for locations no matter what.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 25, 2015, 11:23:17 AM
I think it will be possible to rig the BE to work without graphics (just the log + battle calculations) in the future. But one step at a time :)
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 25, 2015, 03:19:20 PM
Update... well, now we can fight, win/lose, aim/target (yeah, those are different things :) ), calculate damage and die...

Next thing is simple AI (To be improved upon later) and transferring all skillz from Jake's BE.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 25, 2015, 07:08:40 PM
Falling asleep but still porting the spells...

Our Air spells (WIND) were aligned to earth in Jake's BE :)
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 26, 2015, 11:12:10 AM
I didn't expect rows to add so many possibilities but they do :) I have too many ideas in my head... just trying to focus at advancing BE code and failing at this point :D
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 26, 2015, 11:37:32 AM
Attacks calculating is something I'm not sure about. There are so many possibilities as well...

- in Dis armor works in percentages. 90 armor means that only 10% of damage will be inflicted, and armor cannot be more than 95 no matter what.
- in NWN attack compared with defence, and both have significant random factor included, basically both have +dice(20). Armor>attack means miss. Critical hits (when dice is 20) cannot be avoided no matter what. "Bad" hits (when dice is 1) always miss. Damage depends on weapon only.
- in Diablo games the difference between attack and defense defines chance to hit (from 5 to 95%), damage depends on weapon only too.

I kinda like the idea when weapon defines damage, at least mostly. There is no need to have millions of damage and armor.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 26, 2015, 11:55:19 AM
Attacks calculating is something I'm not sure about. There are so many possibilities as well...

- in Dis armor works in percentages. 90 armor means that only 10% of damage will be inflicted, and armor cannot be more than 95 no matter what.
- in NWN attack compared with defence, and both have significant random factor included, basically both have +dice(20). Armor>attack means miss. Critical hits (when dice is 20) cannot be avoided no matter what. "Bad" hits (when dice is 1) always miss. Damage depends on weapon only.
- in Diablo games the difference between attack and defense defines chance to hit (from 5 to 95%), damage depends on weapon only too.

I kinda like the idea when weapon defines damage, at least mostly. There is no need to have millions of damage and armor.

I guess we'll have to figure this out as we go. For now I've just ported whatever the heck we used in Jake's BE.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 26, 2015, 01:52:48 PM
Maybe... This is interesting but it could be a very decent feature to be introduced in a future release. By your logic a fire mage, using a fire staff does not get added advantage? That's how it would work with Jake's BE...
There are two types of magic staffs in games.
- Just sticks that give bonuses to casting skills in some way or another, example: magic+5, fire damage+5%. It could be a decent feature for items system, I mean increasing spells output via items.
- Elemental ranged weapons that actually shoot fire/lightning/whatever. Sometimes they don't even have attack checks and thus never miss.
While I do want elemental weapons, I'm not sure that we should use only staffs for that, or even make them ranged.

The multiplier you see in this code bit, is different and was added by me. It starts at 0 and than is changed by alignments (magic) or critical strike (for melee weapons). Just to settle all the alignments in the game and possibility of the Critical Strike, 100 lines of code are needed...
Speaking of critical strike, in nwn the damge you can inflict with it depends on weapon too. It basically has modificators right in the description, like x2, x3, etc.
It will help a lot with creating more various weapons.

- Items and their effects.
Possible options:
- restoring items, for health and mp at very least, and removing debuffs like poison.
- effects, like regeneration or mp regeneration. In theory, it's possible to even use items for that, like some rare armor that restores hp over time (maybe in battle only, maybe not, it doesn't matter much).
These effects could use a parameter that sets their power, like "regeneration 1" or "poison 1" means +1 or -1 hp per turn.
- disposable and expensive offensive items, powerful enough to be useful in many cases when you are in trouble. Example: a Pandora's box that inflictes 100 damage to all enemies no matter their affinities, defense and evasion.
- I don't want items for buffing. People tend to ignore them (or even sell). Spells will do it if needed.

In terms of attacks, large or small weapons don't really matter.
You can't do the same things with greatsword and dagger.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 26, 2015, 02:31:55 PM
There are two types of magic staffs in games.
- Just sticks that give bonuses to casting skills in some way or another, example: magic+5, fire damage+5%. It could be a decent feature for items system, I mean increasing spells output via items.
- Elemental ranged weapons that actually shoot fire/lightning/whatever. Sometimes they don't even have attack checks and thus never miss.
While I do want elemental weapons, I'm not sure that we should use only staffs for that, or even make them ranged.

I know that you wanted that so I've coded the new BE with that in mind. The trouble at the moments is that elemental weapons make magic almost obsolete. They have damage of their own + possibility for a critical strike + elemental modifiers. I am not deep enough into testing new BE now my guess is that this completely frecks up the system.

Speaking of critical strike, in nwn the damge you can inflict with it depends on weapon too. It basically has modificators right in the description, like x2, x3, etc.
It will help a lot with creating more various weapons.

We can always add new field to items (there will be a couple of new once no matter what we do...). But I have plans to add weapons damage in any case, new Be makes adding code like that seem like a walk in the park.

Possible options:
- restoring items, for health and mp at very least, and removing debuffs like poison.
- effects, like regeneration or mp regeneration. In theory, it's possible to even use items for that, like some rare armor that restores hp over time (maybe in battle only, maybe not, it doesn't matter much).
These effects could use a parameter that sets their power, like "regeneration 1" or "poison 1" means +1 or -1 hp per turn.
- disposable and expensive offensive items, powerful enough to be useful in many cases when you are in trouble. Example: a Pandora's box that inflictes 100 damage to all enemies no matter their affinities, defense and evasion.
- I don't want items for buffing. People tend to ignore them (or even sell). Spells will do it if needed.

All of this is possible and easily added. The trouble is that I atm have not even added 1 line of code that would allow using items on the battlefield or any sort of logic to filter out the items that can be used on the battlefield.

You can't do the same things with greatsword and dagger.

Errr.... we could debate that forever. Rusty Old GreatSword vs Enhanced dagger that adds Scorched Earth Skill (I have plans for that as well :D) is not a very good bet. It will be a matter of skills and weapon damage in the end.
===========================

Bit of an update on the BE (Since you guys seem to be tagging your asses off, I don't want to fall behind :D)

- Positioning is more or less ready (just few more lines of code, it's always just a few more lines... (to get it purrfect) :D ).
- Battlelog in a viewport Dark requested is ready (we'll need to come up with abbreviations for everything because full sentences I am using now look off-base).
- Base damage is ready.
- Graphical effects are ready.
- 90% of skills we had in Jake's BE are ported with perfect aiming (100% will be ported by tomorrow). Note @CW: Whatever you did with sprites is obsolete. It is never a good idea to try and offset something with empty space in an image with in an engine like Ren'Py where you have positioning, anchoring, alignments and offset at your disposal for every displayable in the game (save one or two absolutely unique exceptions out of thousands of cases none of which is relevant to the BE). With new system you can practically chose if you want to hit a heart or a head :D *(obviously we're still talking offsets cause I would not have an idea on how to analyze the content of sprites. But at the very least you can now target the dead center or center top or center bottom of the sprite with the new setup with allows almost pinpoint precision for the attacks. Your fire/ice arrows are now almost flawless and look really good.)
- UI uses default themed Ren'Py elements and will have to be improved (several times) (I managed to pick the worse theme somehow...).
- Everything to do with rows is working really well (imo).
- Targeting seems perfect for both single and multiple targets. (this was not as easy due to rows as I've imagined :D )
- Death is working (still trouble with MC dieing (ends the entire game) but I will fix that soon).
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 26, 2015, 02:41:06 PM
I know that you wanted that so I've coded the new BE with that in mind. The trouble at the moments is that elemental weapons make magic almost obsolete. They have damage of their own + possibility for a critical strike + elemental modifiers. I am not deep enough into testing new BE now my guess is that this completely frecks up the system.
Well, spells usually always hit, while weapons could miss.
Also there should be magic defense in addition to usual one. Depending on enemy, weapons or spells could have the best effect.

Rusty Old GreatSword vs Enhanced dagger that adds Scorched Earth Skill (I have plans for that as well (http://www.pinkpetal.org/Smileys/DarkB/cheesy.gif)) is not a very good bet.
Oh, I don't mean damage. Dagger is a quick and light but short weapon, and vice versa. In terms of skills your dagger skill won't help you much when you wield a greatsword.
That's why it might make sense to have separate skills for big and small weapons.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 26, 2015, 02:46:55 PM
I forget to mention that surprisingly your Other Light skill now looks like one (or the) best effects in the game. Since we now have precision targeting, I've rigged it to start at the top of the enemy and kinda eat (engulf) him/her up. Especially when the enemy dies, it looks like him/her were dissolved. I am planning to add zoom effect because atm it look a just 10% too small...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: CherryWood on January 26, 2015, 05:14:25 PM
Note @CW: Whatever you did with sprites is obsolete. It is never a good idea to try and offset something with empty space in an image with in an engine like Ren'Py where you have positioning, anchoring, alignments and offset at your disposal for every displayable in the game (save one or two absolutely unique exceptions out of thousands of cases none of which is relevant to the BE).
I did it mostly because editing image like that takes just a few seconds and no brainwork at all, which I can't really say about the prospect of calculating and writing offset values somewhere  :) ยจ


But it's just a few images per girls, so it doesn't really matter to me how you want to do that... compared to the whole tagging and such, this is nothing in any case.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 26, 2015, 05:20:11 PM
There is no reason to leave any empty space in any of the images. It's obviously a requirement for animations that consist out of multiple image but not really for anything else, or anything else you may come into contact with.

+ Some of your sprites do not have such an offset! :)

Just two spells left and then I am done with porting!
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: CherryWood on January 27, 2015, 01:19:00 AM
yeah, yeah, just explain it to me how to do it in your way for arena and girl sprites when you're done with other stuff
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 27, 2015, 02:09:36 AM
I always thought that the game will ignore empty space if needed, using only non-empty pixels for positioning  :D
Some engines can do it.
 
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 27, 2015, 04:44:49 AM
Maybe there is a way or one can be coded in... I never looked into it.

Ren'Py can obviously tell the difference between since we have focus mask for buttons. But empty space just increaes the filesize and makes our work harder. Lets just not use it in the future.  Like you've said, sprites can be fixed easiely.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 28, 2015, 03:14:12 PM
BE is almost ready to provide everything out old design supplied us with. Last things to take care of are finishing the spells to work perfectly and getting some (simple) GUI together. Everything else seems to be working just fine.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 28, 2015, 11:56:42 PM
Yeah, too bad we are still backgroundless, so to speak  ::)   
It's possible that you have to redone positioning for some neutral, multipurpose background.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 29, 2015, 07:48:33 AM
Yeah, too bad we are still backgroundless, so to speak  ::)   

That's a problem only you seem to see.

It's possible that you have to redone positioning for some neutral, multipurpose background.

Yeap, you can create dicts with positioning as you see fit.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 29, 2015, 09:03:05 AM
This is because I did searched them long enough. For example, it's simple to find something for beach, but very challenging for forest.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 29, 2015, 02:43:37 PM
I am going to try and create a mockup gui for the BE tonight. Otherwise most of the stuff is working, just needs a bit of polishing out...

Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on January 29, 2015, 06:38:32 PM
FYI i've setup up some backgrounds for render.. only my render pc is in use with a comic project.. that should be done about the 6th of February.

So hopefully i can render it then and i'll drop it on dropbox with a post here.

Good luck setting up the GUI Xela.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 29, 2015, 06:53:08 PM
Kewl.

I just don't know what to render, Dark believes that there aren't any decent forest BE backgrounds on the net... I didn't check thoroughly but he's prolly right.

==========
Edit: I got sidetracked so graphics will have to wait till tomorrow :(
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on January 30, 2015, 02:40:52 PM
I just don't know what to render, Dark believes that there aren't any decent forest BE backgrounds on the net.

I did a forest render for Dark waaay back after the Arena. But that was a more dark render. I still have it somewhere.
Dunno how Dark liked that one.. i never got any feed back over it.

The forest one i know have ready to render is a different set.

I'll post them both when the render pc is done.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on January 31, 2015, 03:03:18 PM
I don't remember it, it was a long time ago. We can use both forests for sure.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on January 31, 2015, 07:27:28 PM
First pics from the BE:

(http://s23.postimg.org/3ouv1ottz/2015_02_01_2_14_39.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/3ouv1ottz/) (http://s23.postimg.org/wd7t4ww07/2015_02_01_2_15_35.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/wd7t4ww07/)

The character who's turn it is gets a reddish frame. Normally only the portrait and bars are shown, when you mousehover over the portrait, the whole window slides out with name, stats in numbers and maybe in future, active effects.
==========
Everything we had in Jake's BE is working + Rows. Some kinks need to be ironed out but BE is more or less ready. There is a lot to be done in a sense of content and details but it's playable already :D

Going to get some sleep...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on February 01, 2015, 05:46:16 AM
Looks good, though I highly dislike some elements, like bars for example. I'll see if there is something good in my db for BE gui.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on February 01, 2015, 06:03:31 AM
Looks good, though I highly dislike some elements, like bars for example. I'll see if there is something good in my db for BE gui.

They look more than ok so it's np even if you don't find anything. We'll update graphics closer to 1.0 anyway...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on February 01, 2015, 08:07:06 AM
I also dislike that window with commands right the center of the screen. Untransparent, huge gui elements should never be in the center, they close the view and kinda force you to act only to get rid of them.
I'd rather have a set of buttons in the bottom of the screen, with icons instead of text, that always located there and don't disappear after you select an action. Like these (https://www.dropbox.com/s/9ctjfng997o2tm4/gui%20%282%29.jpg?dl=0) ones for example (just an example, I don't want to actually use them). I may be able to draw something after we will finish with packs and items.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on February 01, 2015, 08:35:26 AM
I also dislike that window with commands right the center of the screen. Untransparent, huge gui elements should never be in the center, they close the view and kinda force you to act only to get rid of them.
I'd rather have a set of buttons in the bottom of the screen, with icons instead of text, that always located there and don't disappear after you select an action. Like these (https://www.dropbox.com/s/9ctjfng997o2tm4/gui%20%282%29.jpg?dl=0) ones for example (just an example, I don't want to actually use them). I may be able to draw something after we will finish with packs and items.

I am not going to create that kind of GUI for beta version of BE, we may change god knows what as we go and it may have to be renamed every time. For now this will but I can make the choices transparent I think.

===
So we have this gui, simple ai, all the attacks we had in Jakes BE (not purrfect yet, I kinda rushed things), targeting, rows, some base for events, knocking out/dieing and etc.

Still to do:

- Add overlayer for stats.
- Figure out a way for greater interaction between items and BE + Maybe add some new fields to items if required. <-- I am still foggy about this part.
- Add Changing Rows to profile screens.
- Iron out all kinks in attacks.
- Add more attacks.
- Add explanation of abbreviation used in battle log (because they are hard to guess and full sentences look really bad).
- Add non-attack skills and find graphics for them.
- Add conditions for "Double turns within one battle-queue".
- Test, test, test and test...
- Add to Arena instead of old BE.
- Maybe add separate defence vs magic, based off intelligence and defence stats, or something along those lines.
- Fix sprites where we left empty spacing for offsets.

--
Prolly more... it'll be a while till this is ready :(
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on February 01, 2015, 09:39:38 AM
First pics from the BE:

Looks good mate.

fyi. Found the old forest clearing render... at least a test version of it.
http://www.iedereenkanlerenduiken.nl/pyt_forest_clearing_firstrender_only175pxof1000px.png (http://www.iedereenkanlerenduiken.nl/pyt_forest_clearing_firstrender_only175pxof1000px.png)

Let me know what you think.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on February 01, 2015, 10:47:27 AM
Proportions are prolly a bit off. And landscape where sprites should stand needs to be plain. I'll see if I can load it into BE later...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on February 01, 2015, 11:32:56 AM
Another (https://www.dropbox.com/s/67abhvvr9jger6o/1.png?dl=0) cool bg for wildness. Possible (https://www.dropbox.com/s/d2kvqcxkyru9889/1600x900_walkway-1504876.jpg?dl=0) bg for the city if we won't find anything more suitable. Possible (https://www.dropbox.com/s/wyslqhfas49yj8q/anime_background__country_side_by_azuki_sato-d2zi3uu.jpg?dl=0) bg for meadows.

Possible (https://www.dropbox.com/s/i397656ypk91758/775693-3526430-7275211592-anime.jpg?dl=0) bg for forest, however there probably not enough space for default sprites positions. That's the main problem, usually forest bgs don't leave enough space even for our 6 sprites.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on February 01, 2015, 12:01:59 PM
- Add overlayer for stats.
- Figure out a way for greater interaction between items and BE + Maybe add some new fields to items if required. <-- I am still foggy about this part.
Let's see.
- Health, mp and vitality are obvious.

- Attack, defense, magic, magic defense, agility. Maybe luck for critical hits. We might not know how to use them yet, but we will, basic stats are useful no matter what.
I don't know why you avoid magic defense so hard, it's just another battle-only stat provided by items and training  ::)

- A new items field, spells damage modificators. Like fire spells damage +5%.

Possible advanced options:
- Damage provided by weapons. We should agree on how to set it if we'll use it. Either it should be an interval, like for example in NWN 2d4 means 2 x dice(4), or it should be one value, like 4, that may or may not be randomised inside BE somehow. Of course NWN way is more fun.

- Perhaps armor provided by items as well. It could be relative or absolute, ie armor 5 could mean -5& damage or -5 damage.

- I recall you wanted dodge. It could be provided by the difference between attack and defence, it could depend on luck and agility, it could be a new evasion stat.

- Add Changing Rows to profile screens.
There are basically three possible formations. All in the first, one in the first, two in the first row. I think it will be simple enough to create icons for them.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: livingforever on February 01, 2015, 04:31:19 PM
Hi!
Just checking in here to mention this: The UI still is a horrible pain in the ass.
Yes, I can redesign it, but it won't happen this week.
Have fun!
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on February 09, 2015, 04:32:20 PM
Finally the project has been finished and released.
So now i can fix and setup some renders.

The old forest one needs to be smooth for the lower part.. the higher part some trees? and rocks and stuff?
In about the same camera as the arena. That a good idea?

Resolution of the arena I sent was 1280x720. If you need bigger/smaller let me know.

Will keep you updated.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on February 09, 2015, 05:37:30 PM
1280x800 is the game res. I need to load your arena to new be to check if the camera is ok.


Edit:

This is what it looks like but I think CW added more space to the bottom with photoshop.
(http://s1.postimg.org/6so1v5d3f/screenshot0001.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/6so1v5d3f/)
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on February 09, 2015, 07:04:21 PM
K thx. I'll keep that as a reference for setting up the forest scenes and some beach, city ones.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on February 14, 2015, 11:24:03 AM
Mountain and forest scenes are still off a lot.

With this post a beach scene is enclosed (lower quality) if you like it, i'll upload the full 1.4 mb file somewhere.

Let me know if it's usuable
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on February 14, 2015, 11:48:16 AM
This is perfectly useful but we need forest, I posted a very decent pic of a beach not long ago.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on February 14, 2015, 12:45:30 PM
Yeah, upload beach somewhere, we will use it too.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on February 14, 2015, 01:15:00 PM
Uploaded the beach to http://www.iedereenkanlerenduiken.nl/pyt/beach.png

The included forest is only a start render... the big file is here http://www.iedereenkanlerenduiken.nl/pyt/forest1.png

Let me know if the forest is usable.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on February 14, 2015, 01:43:57 PM
Updated the forest clearing a bit.

Example is included in the post

Full size upload at http://www.iedereenkanlerenduiken.nl/pyt/forestclearing.png

Let me know what you think.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on February 15, 2015, 07:19:01 AM
Rocks/grass/mushrooms look huge... like Alice in Wonderland after drinking the shrinking potion :)
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on February 15, 2015, 07:27:15 AM
Mushrooms aren't that big mate... I could make them that big...
Grass i can easily shrink.

I made the rock so big to have a "background" to fit against.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on February 15, 2015, 08:01:18 AM
K removed a bit on the lower side and made the grass/rock & plants a bit smaller.

The url is http://www.iedereenkanlerenduiken.nl/pyt/forestclearing_smaller.png

Let me know.

Fyi I picked up some dungeon sets. Let me know if you still want to do something with dungeons.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on February 15, 2015, 08:34:17 AM
(http://s3.postimg.org/4h94sjerj/2015_02_15_2_29_13.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/4h94sjerj/) (http://s3.postimg.org/437ssxunz/2015_02_15_2_30_42.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/437ssxunz/) (http://s3.postimg.org/ec09yripr/2015_02_15_2_32_20.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/ec09yripr/)

Beach is absolutely the best, there are some sorts of artifacts (white dots) on trees but it's not a deal-breaker.

Last forest is better but it still creates a feeling of battlers being midgets... or is it just me?
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on February 15, 2015, 08:38:50 AM
The beach was an earlier render.. if i let it render out.. the white dots will be gone.

I'll adjust the forests so they'll have small trees. That way the chars won't look so small.

Btw for the beach do you want so waving beach babes or something? I can probably render an 5 to 8 frame animation for a few gals.

For the forests it would probably be critters or fairies.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on February 15, 2015, 09:31:43 AM
The beach was an earlier render.. if i let it render out.. the white dots will be gone.

I'll adjust the forests so they'll have small trees. That way the chars won't look so small.

Btw for the beach do you want so waving beach babes or something? I can probably render an 5 to 8 frame animation for a few gals.

For the forests it would probably be critters or fairies.

Might be fun :) But please also render a clean version with just the scenery.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on February 15, 2015, 10:00:06 AM
Beach is rendering at the moment. Unfortunately only had the original setup, so i had to pose the camera again.
I'll let it render. The beach babes i'll do later.

First i'll concentrate on the forests resizing and camera setup.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on February 15, 2015, 10:21:09 AM
I agree with Xela here. Beach looks great, but trees in the forest seem giant and remind me of Alice Madness Returns game too. It's not necessarily a bad thing, we could use a giant forest location too. But we need a normal forest anyway.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on February 15, 2015, 11:21:10 AM
Full render of the beach. Like i said in my earlier post, had to emulate the camera.
It's very close to the first one.. only fully rendered without hot pixels (the white points).

http://www.iedereenkanlerenduiken.nl/pyt/beach_b.png

The forests look so big because the camera is zoomed in much.. will adjust and fix up the scenes and render again.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on February 15, 2015, 12:04:59 PM
One forest done. It's still rendering. At 1/4 i took a screenshot to give you a look.
Let me know what you think?
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on February 15, 2015, 12:35:10 PM
Never mind the earlier post.

This one is about the size of the beach, so i think it should work.

It's still rendering but i took a sample from it and made the include preview.

The full version is here http://www.iedereenkanlerenduiken.nl/pyt/forrest5_done.png
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on February 15, 2015, 01:25:49 PM
The other forrest doesn't lend itself to change the distance of the camera. Everythings gets messed up.

So i'm recreating that scene completely anew.

Will probably be somewhere next week till it's done.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on February 15, 2015, 07:15:57 PM
Looks a lot better :)

(http://s10.postimg.org/f5jgqtoc5/screenshot0002.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/f5jgqtoc5/)
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on February 18, 2015, 03:39:38 PM
When i was looking for a decent looking 3d filler for the 2nd forest clearing, i came across some backgrounds.
All for are forest clearings and nicely drawn. I sized them to the right size and have uploaded them.

Let me know if they are usable.. samples included with the post.

The real files are uploaded at:
http://www.iedereenkanlerenduiken.nl/pyt/drawnforest1.png (http://www.iedereenkanlerenduiken.nl/pyt/drawnforest1.png)
http://www.iedereenkanlerenduiken.nl/pyt/drawnforest2.png (http://www.iedereenkanlerenduiken.nl/pyt/drawnforest2.png)
http://www.iedereenkanlerenduiken.nl/pyt/drawnforest3.png (http://www.iedereenkanlerenduiken.nl/pyt/drawnforest3.png)
http://www.iedereenkanlerenduiken.nl/pyt/drawnforest4.png (http://www.iedereenkanlerenduiken.nl/pyt/drawnforest4.png)
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: CherryWood on February 18, 2015, 04:23:39 PM
I really like those new ones!


The scale still feels a bit off, but I think we should solve that not by changing the BGs further, but by making our sprites bigger in BE.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on February 18, 2015, 05:04:08 PM
I really like those new ones!


The scale still feels a bit off, but I think we should solve that not by changing the BGs further, but by making our sprites bigger in BE.

The original versions have much more "clearing" under them, so i can make them show more trees.. or less trees and more clearing...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xipomus on February 21, 2015, 02:47:26 PM
Came across this pic, when helping someone find a decent background pick.
Just thought i would offer it for use.

The bigger version is here: //http://www.iedereenkanlerenduiken.nl/pyt/drawnforest5.jpg
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on March 11, 2015, 07:17:47 PM
Found a LOT of new gifs and filmstrips for attacks/buffs. Sorting through them right now, some are really amazing. I could have found a lot more (there are many on small asian/russian/english websites and even more ripped from other games).

@Dark, you once said our options were limited, that is definitely not the case... Some are really good and we can always find more. Getting matching or even generic sfx will not be easy, but that is doable as well. We just need to figure out how many we really need. Once sorted, I'll upload them to DB.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: laposteb on March 15, 2015, 05:11:38 PM
It can give idea :
http://g.e-hentai.org/g/765294/7676150bcb/
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on March 16, 2015, 12:37:57 AM
I spent a few hours playing sumbro2, quite a few ideas there. We can use something from this game as well, thanks :)
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on March 22, 2015, 02:42:32 PM
There is a whole bunch of ways for poison to work... never thought of it as a difficult concept but BE wasn't prepared for it properly.

For now I am coding the effect to take place right before character makes a move and not once per full battle queue.

Proper damage calculation is also a puzzle atm but I'll try to come up with something...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on March 22, 2015, 02:53:43 PM
I told you, we could use strings like [poison, 20] meaning -20 hp per turn. And vice versa for regeneration.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on March 22, 2015, 02:59:06 PM
I told you, we could use strings like [poison, 20] meaning -20 hp per turn. And vice versa for regeneration.

? In the BE? I've done something similar, it will work for now. We will most likely change HP/MP ranges in the future. For now I am just trying to make sure that the core of the BE is working, damage calculations are not hard to add later, prolly even easier.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on March 22, 2015, 03:09:10 PM
Yup, in the BE. Btw it could be relative values to cover possible range changes. Like [poison, 1] means -1% of max health.

Also, I think I'll create sevaral types of poisons (poison, deadly poison, spider poison, etc) and use them for various mobs instead of setting poison power manually for everyone.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on March 22, 2015, 03:18:20 PM
Yup, in the BE. Btw it could be relative values to cover possible range changes. Like [poison, 1] means -1% of max health.

Also, I think I'll create sevaral types of poisons (poison, deadly poison, spider poison, etc) and use them for various mobs instead of setting poison power manually for everyone.

Kewl. For now I'll just create basic poison skill and make sure that it's working. Later next week I'll make sure that other skills can be created from it with ease. I need to figure out how to work color channel manipulation in Ren'Py. I know all the functions and how to use them but not what values to provide as arguments to gradually color sprites green and red for special effects. It will take a few hours of trail and error next weekend I expect...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on April 05, 2015, 05:51:36 PM
@Dark

I am not sure it's a good idea to name base spells creatively, it looks weird and confusing as hell. If you don't like the a/ra/ga FF styling, "Name" + 1/2/3/4 is prolly a better bet. Right now I cannot figure out what's what at all even with descriptions and reading 10 descriptions if you have 10 spells in a game where we potentially may have dozens if not hundreds eventually, at least base spells should be ordered.

IMO anyway, wonder if anyone else has opinions on this...
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on April 06, 2015, 03:24:14 AM
Well, we always can sort them by element and power in characters gui, this way preventing any possible confusion. But I don't mind using simplier names (not a/ra/ga though).
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: BlackWolf Inc. on April 06, 2015, 04:41:27 AM
Fire Emblem uses name prefixes for basic spells, in that case it would be for example:
Thunder -> Elthunder ->Arcthunder

Just  an alternative for you guys.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: DarkTl on April 06, 2015, 05:07:51 AM
Yup, that's much better.
Title: Re: Battle Engine and Combat
Post by: Xela on April 06, 2015, 06:03:49 AM
I'll think about how we can sort them, there are loads of elements, might be even more in the future. When you asked me about ga/ra style, I assumed you wanted to fall back to "Fire 1/2/3/4" style, not come up with unique names.

I cannot do anything until late evening anyway. My first basetraits test yesterday went well by the way :)