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Author Topic: <-- Archived --> (Battle Engine and Combat)  (Read 118579 times)

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Offline Xela

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Re: Battle Engine and Combat
« Reply #135 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.

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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.
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Offline DarkTl

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Re: Battle Engine and Combat
« Reply #136 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.

Offline Xela

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Re: Battle Engine and Combat
« Reply #137 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.
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Offline DarkTl

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Re: Battle Engine and Combat
« Reply #138 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, 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).

Offline Xela

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Re: Battle Engine and Combat
« Reply #139 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, 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.

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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.
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Offline DarkTl

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Re: Battle Engine and Combat
« Reply #140 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.
« Last Edit: January 22, 2015, 07:35:32 AM by DarkTl »

Offline Xela

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Re: Battle Engine and Combat
« Reply #141 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.
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Offline DarkTl

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Re: Battle Engine and Combat
« Reply #142 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.

Offline Xela

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Re: Battle Engine and Combat
« Reply #143 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.
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Offline DarkTl

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Re: Battle Engine and Combat
« Reply #144 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.

Offline Xela

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Re: Battle Engine and Combat
« Reply #145 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.
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Offline DarkTl

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Re: Battle Engine and Combat
« Reply #146 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.

Offline Xela

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Re: Battle Engine and Combat
« Reply #147 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...
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Offline livingforever

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Re: Battle Engine and Combat
« Reply #148 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.
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Offline DarkTl

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Re: Battle Engine and Combat
« Reply #149 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.