Attack balancing in an action game.
Author
I'm working on designing attacks for my player right now. It will be an action game with sword attacks. I know that there will be basic cuts and stabs. But should basic cuts and stabs be able to interupt enemy charge/combo attacks? and should an enemy's basic attack be able to interrupt the player's charge/combo?
This totally depends on the rest of your combat design. This is kind of like asking "Should a company have one toll-free line or many?" Both work in certain situations. Either of those two styles would likely work, but you will have to consider what works best for your game.
That's most likely something you don't need to worry about now (assuming you haven't completely gotten attacks working yet, as is sounds). You see, right now, you might decide to do things one way, then, when actually playing and testing the game, you find it's really unfair, doesn't work/look so good, or worst of all, isn't that fun.
On top of that, doing it one way and going back and changing it, will probably be pretty simple*. What I mean is, it's not going to require you to re-write your engine, or rethink your whole design if you make the wrong choice, so just pick one, then implement it, and try it out. If it works, stick with it, if not, go the other way, it's not such an important feature that you have to pick one and stick to it, nor should you spend too much time on it early on.
*It may sound like this flies in the face of a good well thought out design, but in reality, you are not going to design every last detail, some things you are just going to ave to figure out when yo get there and this problem seems more like a minor detail than a major feature. Do however, design you game in such a way that it can accomadate such changes, if need be.
On top of that, doing it one way and going back and changing it, will probably be pretty simple*. What I mean is, it's not going to require you to re-write your engine, or rethink your whole design if you make the wrong choice, so just pick one, then implement it, and try it out. If it works, stick with it, if not, go the other way, it's not such an important feature that you have to pick one and stick to it, nor should you spend too much time on it early on.
*It may sound like this flies in the face of a good well thought out design, but in reality, you are not going to design every last detail, some things you are just going to ave to figure out when yo get there and this problem seems more like a minor detail than a major feature. Do however, design you game in such a way that it can accomadate such changes, if need be.
I faced a similar problem to yours in designing combat rules for the project I'm currently working on, so I'll provide you with the solution that I came up with. Feel free to modify it to suit your own needs or discard it entirely...
Most attacks, in addition to damage output, accuracy modifier, elemental attribute, etc., are given a particular set of "battle effects". Such effects include...
INTERRUPT - Interrupts the attacks of any enemies hit by the attack.
BREAK - Breaks the defensive stance of any enemies hit by the attack.
... among others. Each battle effect can be LVL 1 - 3; obviously, the higher the level the better the effect. For example, a simple slash might have INTERRUPT LVL1, while a more powerful slash might have INTERRUPT LVL2 and BREAK LVL1.
The next step involves giving game entities (players and enemies) a resistance value to the above battle effects. For example, a small insect monster will likely have a low resistance to these effects (making it easy to interrupt their attacks or break their defense), while a heavily-armored knight will likely have a high resistance to these effects. The rule I used is that if the enemy's resistance level is greater than or equal to the attack's battle effect level, the effect is negated (for example, if the knight has a INTERRUPT resistance of 2, then the knight cannot be affected by INTERRUPT LVL1 or LVL2 (just LVL3)). Thus, entities have resistance levels from 0 (no resistance) up to 3 (full resistance).
Generally speaking, most of the "light" (low-moderate damage, moderate-high speed) attacks have low battle effect levels while most of the "heavy" (moderate-high damage, low-moderate speed) attacks have high battle effect levels. The only problem that arises is that with this system the "light" characters won't be able to interrupt most of the attacks that "heavy" characters use (making an effective frontal assault extremely difficult to pull off). Then again, the "light" characters are given more advanced evasive capabilities that make counter-attacks a more effective option in combat.
Hope that gave you a couple ideas.
Most attacks, in addition to damage output, accuracy modifier, elemental attribute, etc., are given a particular set of "battle effects". Such effects include...
INTERRUPT - Interrupts the attacks of any enemies hit by the attack.
BREAK - Breaks the defensive stance of any enemies hit by the attack.
... among others. Each battle effect can be LVL 1 - 3; obviously, the higher the level the better the effect. For example, a simple slash might have INTERRUPT LVL1, while a more powerful slash might have INTERRUPT LVL2 and BREAK LVL1.
The next step involves giving game entities (players and enemies) a resistance value to the above battle effects. For example, a small insect monster will likely have a low resistance to these effects (making it easy to interrupt their attacks or break their defense), while a heavily-armored knight will likely have a high resistance to these effects. The rule I used is that if the enemy's resistance level is greater than or equal to the attack's battle effect level, the effect is negated (for example, if the knight has a INTERRUPT resistance of 2, then the knight cannot be affected by INTERRUPT LVL1 or LVL2 (just LVL3)). Thus, entities have resistance levels from 0 (no resistance) up to 3 (full resistance).
Generally speaking, most of the "light" (low-moderate damage, moderate-high speed) attacks have low battle effect levels while most of the "heavy" (moderate-high damage, low-moderate speed) attacks have high battle effect levels. The only problem that arises is that with this system the "light" characters won't be able to interrupt most of the attacks that "heavy" characters use (making an effective frontal assault extremely difficult to pull off). Then again, the "light" characters are given more advanced evasive capabilities that make counter-attacks a more effective option in combat.
Hope that gave you a couple ideas.
Being able to have both situations play out in a combat game would be the best option. Design something yourself or even use TheShadow344's 3 Level design to begin with and see how you can tweak it later. Having to know how to fight different monsters or whatever depending on their attacks would be best.
Author
Thanks. I'm not really a pro game designer so I didn't know that you're actually supposed to use trial and error sometimes.
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