OK, I am just going to get stuck straight in here. I got an email from a newbie game dev (who doesn''t want to give his ideas away here .. Too bad ) but anyway.... When I was reading through his message I spotted something odd. It said something about different fighting styles (Ie, range, sword and magic) and something else... I am not going to go into that. I was thinking to myself about multiplayer games where you have more than one character class. I will take Diablo II as my example, as it was the first to come to mind. In Diablo II I play a Paladin, and my friend plays an Amazon and a few of my friends play Sorceress''. When in battle, I find that it is either ME or my friends Valkyrie that takes all of the damage. This became rather bad as in Multiplayer games the baddies get pumped up more for each additional player. What we need is the baddies to attack those behind (the ones doing the actual damage concequently ). I am sick of getting beaten to near extinction because my friend forgot to recast his Valkyrie, or that it ran off after a few other baddies and drew more towards the battle. There needs to be some AI that causes different players to be targetted. That is all I have to say in this rant. Does it make sense? -Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche           

You know dwarf, RTS games are borrowing leveling from RPGs. Seems to me like RPGs need to borrow AI from the RTS realm. In a good RTS the AI knows to attack certain things based on what they are and what they can do. Starcraft, for instance, has units that know they need to attack towers, or need to put down mines, or take out peons.

I think it''d be much more interesting if you had a mixture of smart and dumb monsters (for variety). Dumb monsters would be what you have in most RPGs. But smart monsters would know to find the weakest link, or figure out that something is generating something else (mages are generating health, and must be killed first).

Maybe from there you could get into ambushes, and harassing / sniper attacks. Basically the kind of stuff you find in an RTS.



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Just waiting for the mothership...

In Everquest, the enemies would attack healers quite often and wizards too if they shot offensive spells too often. Everquest did have a pretty balanced combat system. That was it''s only real strong point.


"All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be --Pink Floyd
Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.

I agree on the fact that enemies should have a better AI (and Everquest DID do a pretty good job at that: it has an ''aggro'' system, where enemies will attack whoever angers them the most at a certain moment. For casters it''s usually best to first let the real fighters ''anger'' the enemies -by doing lots of damage- and then the casters can finish the opponent off with their damage spells)

But, at the same time, there should be a way for the players to counter the enemy AI.

If enemies will seek out casters and archers for example, there should be a way (ideally) for the melee fighters to keep them from doing so. They could whack them in the back while they run by (giving bonusses on to hit and damage or something) or they might even be able to physically block them from getting through.

I think that we as players ALL know that the one thing to do FIRST is get rid of any long range enemies. Take out that caster and archer! (well, at least in the games that they are a threath). But, if WE know that we should take those out first, I think it should be reasonable to assume that the truly intelligent opponents know it just as well.

Silvermyst

I am mainly saying this, because in Diablo when I was first confronted with archers, I would charge past the skeleton warriors to take out the archers first. It was easier to do it that way, and you tend to take less damage on the whole (as archers tended to do more damage than the warriors).

Anyway, I agree with the RTS merger... I think that RTS and RPG are going to end up coming together in the end, and FPS soon after... I think.

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

DWARFSOFT: And you want the enemies to do the same to player controlled characters right? Storm straight past the Paladin/Warrior towards the casters/amazon...

I agree. The smart enemies should do this.

But, in running through the first line of defense (the Paladin and Warrior) that line of defense should get a good shot in at the attacker. That might make the attacker think twice about it...

But then, the same would have to apply to player characters (which I guess it already does, as when you run in Diablo II you have a higher chance -much higher?- to get hit) when they run past melee enemies towards long range/casting enemies.

Silvermyst

Yeah, that is kind of it... But I am also thinking of SUPER smart enemies, where there is a row of 5 goblins (that seems to be the general example case right? ) that draw your Warrior/Paladin/Barbarian type characters in. Then a group of another, say 10, goblins come in from the sides and flank your casters/shooters. That would bring tactics into games and fighting. Screw melee your casters and shooters take the most damage before the melee guys can break from battle to protect them. With the main source of damage reduced, the pary is less likely to do much damage .

PS. Seb, I am getting around to replying to your msgs, but I have to compile my ideas and responses first. Be patient

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche