RPG Combat System Interactive Design
Author
[I'M CURRENTLY WORKING ON AN UPDATE AND WILL POST IT AS SOON AS IT IS DONE]
[11.12.08 @ 4:48 CST]
I'm trying to develop a combat system. It is for an RPG. I don't want it to be a simple system, but I don't want some crazy advanced system either. I want to design it from the ground up, stats and everything. I'm hoping others here are trying to do the same thing and we can bounce our ideas around.
Check it out and anything I like I will add to this initial post. Thanks!
REQUIRED STATISTICS
The following are some statistics I want involved in the system. Keep in mind adding to these is also possible. Any statistics can be modified by a beneficial spell, item, or piece of equipment.
BASIC STATS
These stats are modified directly but affect some or all of the derived stats listed below.
Agility (From equipment, spells, or items)
Intelligence (From equipment, spells, or items)
Spirit (From equipment, spells, or items)
Stamina (From equipment, spells, or items)
Strength (From equipment, spells, or items)
Armor (From equipment, spells, or items)
Hit Points (Stamina)
Magic Points (Intelligence)
MELEE/RANGED DERIVED STATS
Attack Power (Strength, Agility)
Critical Strike (Agility)
Damage Penetration (Strength)
Hit (Agility)
SPELL DERIVED STATS
Spell Critical Strike (Intelligence)
Spell Penetration (Spirit)
Spell Power (Intelligence, Spirit)
Spell Hit (Spirit)
DAMAGE MITIGATION DERIVED STATS
Block (Strength)
Damage Reduction (Strength)
Parry (Strength, Agility)
Spell Resist (Spirit)
BONUS STATS
Armor Bonus (From item or equipment)
Damage Bonus (From item or equipment)
Spell Healing Bonus (From item or equipment)
Spell Damage Bonus (From item or equipment)
RESISTANCES
Air Resist (From item or equipment)
Earth Resist (From item or equipment)
Fire Resist (From item or equipment)
Water Resist (From item or equipment)
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
I haven’t worked on how any of these values are derived, but that’s what I’m working on next and I’d like to get some feedback.
HIT AND DAMAGE FORMULAS
Will be getting started on these soon.
CREDITS AND THANKS
Thank you for any help you can give. If you post anything that ends up in this post I’ll give you credit here.
[Edited by - snorky on November 12, 2008 4:39:29 PM]
Could you elaborate on what you mean by damage & spell penetration?
A couple opinions:
Armor isn't used. It seems like you were thinking of D&D's Armor Class, but for the derived stats you were thinking of some other system. In my opinion, Armor should be a major part of damage reduction (essentially a Defense stat, in terms of other games).
Block and Parry are pretty much the same thing, except when I think of block I think of a shield, and parry, a weapon. I would submit that Agility is the most important factor on both accounts, though strength is probably also needed in blocking. One could argue that strength is not a factor in parrying, or perhaps just a small one.
A couple opinions:
Armor isn't used. It seems like you were thinking of D&D's Armor Class, but for the derived stats you were thinking of some other system. In my opinion, Armor should be a major part of damage reduction (essentially a Defense stat, in terms of other games).
Block and Parry are pretty much the same thing, except when I think of block I think of a shield, and parry, a weapon. I would submit that Agility is the most important factor on both accounts, though strength is probably also needed in blocking. One could argue that strength is not a factor in parrying, or perhaps just a small one.
Author
lmelior,
Thanks for your quick reply!
What I meant by spell penetration is:
The ability for the spell to reduce a target's resistance. For example:
My fire resist is 50% against you and lets say you cast a fireball at me and you have a spell penetration of 4%. My resist chance against you is now 46%.
As for damage penetration:
The ability for an attack to ignore armor. Let's say I have 2000 armor and you attack me but you have 250 penetration. Instead of doing damage against my armor of 2000 you'd roll damage against 1750 armor.
Hopefully that clears that up?
I think I agree with you on the armor. Although my initial intent was the main way to build armor is to say put on a breastplate that will give you say 200 armor. The stat in and of itself was meant to decrease damage...I just stuck it up there because it really isn't a derived stat (at least in my mind.)
I like your idea about block and parry. It makes more sense to think of it that way especially thinking ahead to implementing it. The way the stats affect it is a little confusing to me the way you stated them. Perhaps you can give an example when you have time?
NOTE: I was trying to balance the stats at the same time for example strength would affect 2 or 3 items and so would every other stat. I don't want 1 stat to affect 4 things while 1 stat only affects 1...I just see that causing problems down the road.
Thanks lmelior!
Thanks for your quick reply!
What I meant by spell penetration is:
The ability for the spell to reduce a target's resistance. For example:
My fire resist is 50% against you and lets say you cast a fireball at me and you have a spell penetration of 4%. My resist chance against you is now 46%.
As for damage penetration:
The ability for an attack to ignore armor. Let's say I have 2000 armor and you attack me but you have 250 penetration. Instead of doing damage against my armor of 2000 you'd roll damage against 1750 armor.
Hopefully that clears that up?
I think I agree with you on the armor. Although my initial intent was the main way to build armor is to say put on a breastplate that will give you say 200 armor. The stat in and of itself was meant to decrease damage...I just stuck it up there because it really isn't a derived stat (at least in my mind.)
I like your idea about block and parry. It makes more sense to think of it that way especially thinking ahead to implementing it. The way the stats affect it is a little confusing to me the way you stated them. Perhaps you can give an example when you have time?
NOTE: I was trying to balance the stats at the same time for example strength would affect 2 or 3 items and so would every other stat. I don't want 1 stat to affect 4 things while 1 stat only affects 1...I just see that causing problems down the road.
Thanks lmelior!
Although there seems to be a lot of strategic growth here, it seems to me that the game relies too heavily on a stat system which, just like any other, can be abused relentlessly.
I'd simplify it, compound some stats under different terms.
This way it's easier and quicker to check for exploitations.
And your manual won't be quite so thick either.
I'd simplify it, compound some stats under different terms.
This way it's easier and quicker to check for exploitations.
And your manual won't be quite so thick either.
Author
Quote:Original post by Cpt Mothballs
Although there seems to be a lot of strategic growth here, it seems to me that the game relies too heavily on a stat system which, just like any other, can be abused relentlessly.
I'd simplify it, compound some stats under different terms.
This way it's easier and quicker to check for exploitations.
And your manual won't be quite so thick either.
Cpt Mothballs,
I've actually been redoing it a lot and as soon as I get something resembling any structure whatsoever lol I'm going to repost it. I've taken some stats out and pretty much base everything off of 4 stats. However items can still increase and decrease stats.
Thanks for your reply! Hopefully I'll have something to post tonight or tomorrow.
I would remove strength from block and parry. They are mostly reliant on your ability to move quickly to intercept an attack. Add in a stamina stat to replace strength if you want to reflect the 'strength' needed to continually block or parry.
Parry is done with a weapon and block is with a shield, also, as parry is a weapon move it is done such that it open the target for a counter attack. Its the difference between ducking behind your shield and absorbing a blow with it and knocking the attack to the side with your sword and the lunging in with your own attack.
About magic, I really hope you come up with something more interesting and more original than "earth, air, fire, and water" for your magic. If you deal with elements, make up words to represent them and don't make the visuals so obvious as to what they are. Or look beyond an element system. Its not bad in and of itself, but its been done too many times. If your world had its own culture, with strange names for towns and plants and animals then the elements could have strange names as well and not look specifically like anything the player might label as water or fire. In that way, even though its esentiall the same, it feels new. I would also go with 3, 5 or 6 elements, not 4. The interactions between 4 things tend to be polar where each have its opposite. You can do a rotating cycle with it, but thats not the common case. Three elements lends itself to a rotation of advantage, IE, paper scissors rock. Five elements can't be polar and so would rotate as well. Six could be polar, but would be easier to work with as two sets of 3.
About damage mitigation, it would be cool if you could actively parry spells, or maybe reflect them. What if there was a spell turning skill? Try not to think of magic in terms of FPS with fireballs. Its a fun aspect but it can be much more interesting than that. What could magic do beyond 36 flavours of nuke spells?
Overall, just dig a little deeper and try to think of what would be really cool.
Parry is done with a weapon and block is with a shield, also, as parry is a weapon move it is done such that it open the target for a counter attack. Its the difference between ducking behind your shield and absorbing a blow with it and knocking the attack to the side with your sword and the lunging in with your own attack.
About magic, I really hope you come up with something more interesting and more original than "earth, air, fire, and water" for your magic. If you deal with elements, make up words to represent them and don't make the visuals so obvious as to what they are. Or look beyond an element system. Its not bad in and of itself, but its been done too many times. If your world had its own culture, with strange names for towns and plants and animals then the elements could have strange names as well and not look specifically like anything the player might label as water or fire. In that way, even though its esentiall the same, it feels new. I would also go with 3, 5 or 6 elements, not 4. The interactions between 4 things tend to be polar where each have its opposite. You can do a rotating cycle with it, but thats not the common case. Three elements lends itself to a rotation of advantage, IE, paper scissors rock. Five elements can't be polar and so would rotate as well. Six could be polar, but would be easier to work with as two sets of 3.
About damage mitigation, it would be cool if you could actively parry spells, or maybe reflect them. What if there was a spell turning skill? Try not to think of magic in terms of FPS with fireballs. Its a fun aspect but it can be much more interesting than that. What could magic do beyond 36 flavours of nuke spells?
Overall, just dig a little deeper and try to think of what would be really cool.
This might just be nit-pickity, and slightly off topic, but I agree that parry and stength do in fact work together. I spent a few years fencing, and even if you have the speed (agility) to get your blade into the correct position to parry, if you dont have the wrist strength to put into it, the attack will just break through anyways.
In actual fencing its quite key, balancing the speed and strength of attacks; its easy to flit the tip of an epee around when your not giving it tons of power, but when you do, the movements become much more deliberate and harder to feint out of or change the direction of.
For a game, Id have a str comparison between attackers str and the parriers str, but it would be much less of a factor then the agility, as it doesnt matter if the agility isnt there at all. Games where you can pump 100% agi and overpower stuff that way have always kind of irked me...
To me it would work as in interesting way to break symetry when two persons or a person an NPC, both agi based, face off. Say one has 50 agi and 10 str, while the other has 45 agi and 15 str. Instead of simply being a matter of who gets lucky with the equal crit chances, one person hits slightly harder and parries slightly more, while the other hits slightly softer but crits slightly more.
In actual fencing its quite key, balancing the speed and strength of attacks; its easy to flit the tip of an epee around when your not giving it tons of power, but when you do, the movements become much more deliberate and harder to feint out of or change the direction of.
For a game, Id have a str comparison between attackers str and the parriers str, but it would be much less of a factor then the agility, as it doesnt matter if the agility isnt there at all. Games where you can pump 100% agi and overpower stuff that way have always kind of irked me...
To me it would work as in interesting way to break symetry when two persons or a person an NPC, both agi based, face off. Say one has 50 agi and 10 str, while the other has 45 agi and 15 str. Instead of simply being a matter of who gets lucky with the equal crit chances, one person hits slightly harder and parries slightly more, while the other hits slightly softer but crits slightly more.
I would like to comment on Strength not being integral to blocking and parrying. If you are lending a realistic feel to the game, this is entirely untrue.
If a person swings a weapon at you, be it a sword, mace, or fires a projectile at you, you must be strong enough to repel or absorb the attack. A strong whack on a shield with a heavy mace could potentially shatter the bones of the arm under it. The best way around this is to have more muscle mass, and thus more strength, supporting the shield.
As to parrying; let us say someone is swinging at you in a downward motion, and you raise your weapon to parry it aside. If you have the muscle mass of a 6 year old, while your opponent has the strength of a blacksmith, his weapon will pass through your guard with no problems. Chances are, your own sword (or whatever weapon you are holding) will probably hit you, to be followed very quickly by the enemies.
Of course, these points are only relevant depending on how realistic you want to make your game.
If a person swings a weapon at you, be it a sword, mace, or fires a projectile at you, you must be strong enough to repel or absorb the attack. A strong whack on a shield with a heavy mace could potentially shatter the bones of the arm under it. The best way around this is to have more muscle mass, and thus more strength, supporting the shield.
As to parrying; let us say someone is swinging at you in a downward motion, and you raise your weapon to parry it aside. If you have the muscle mass of a 6 year old, while your opponent has the strength of a blacksmith, his weapon will pass through your guard with no problems. Chances are, your own sword (or whatever weapon you are holding) will probably hit you, to be followed very quickly by the enemies.
Of course, these points are only relevant depending on how realistic you want to make your game.
Quote:Original post by HunterCyprus93However, if you are able to move quickly enough to catch their weapon at an angle, it can be deflected with very little strength - think of the circular parries in épée: it is more efficient to use your opponent's strength against him, and it increases the likelihood that he loses balance and provides an opening for a counter.
If a person swings a weapon at you, be it a sword, mace, or fires a projectile at you, you must be strong enough to repel or absorb the attack..
Actually, when you get used to an opponant, and know that they are very fond of quick little circular parries without any balls, its easy to get a few point by the brute forcing your way through. The parry might change the angle of the blade, but unless you apply force its possible to just, move it back.
The the parry moves the attackers wrist slightly, and if the attack presses the attack, their wrist goes back to where it was, and move the defenders wrist out of position. My fencing coach made us do a magnitude of wrist exercises to this end, in competition it would suck to have all the flair in the world and still lose because the other kid just overpowered you.
The the parry moves the attackers wrist slightly, and if the attack presses the attack, their wrist goes back to where it was, and move the defenders wrist out of position. My fencing coach made us do a magnitude of wrist exercises to this end, in competition it would suck to have all the flair in the world and still lose because the other kid just overpowered you.
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