Hi,

I've created a game, which is something around Tower Defense. Now I'm stuck at generating statistics for different weapons used to kill enemies and generating enemies health points and damage they can make. Different weapons can be upgraded etc. etc.
I was wondering, if I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel by creating huge formulas to check everything, maybe there's much simpler way.
The problem I've got, is that there are so many different paths user can take, that I can't handle it with a simple set of formulas... or at least I think so.

Any help and hints will be appreciated, it looks like stats generation will take me much longer than development of the game ;)

Hi,

I've created a game, which is something around Tower Defense. Now I'm stuck at generating statistics for different weapons used to kill enemies and generating enemies health points and damage they can make. Different weapons can be upgraded etc. etc.
I was wondering, if I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel by creating huge formulas to check everything, maybe there's much simpler way.
The problem I've got, is that there are so many different paths user can take, that I can't handle it with a simple set of formulas... or at least I think so.

Any help and hints will be appreciated, it looks like stats generation will take me much longer than development of the game ;)

The different paths the user can take, do you mean this with respect to the upgrade trees of the weapons (towers)?

If this is the case then it is going to be determined by how you want to handle the upgrade trees, or how you have them envisioned in your mind.

[indent=1]Are there different subsets which can be combined however you wish? In this case you want to come up with base rules for the different types, and then come up with a constant way in which they are combined. For example:

[indent=1]Type A = Fast firing. High Damage. Constant single damage.
[indent=1]Type B = Slow firing. Low damage. Damage over time.

[indent=1]Type A/B = Medium firing (between the two). Medium Damage (between the two). Initial damage on hit + damage over time effect.

The alternative is that you already have a determined tree with the various weapons you want to have, and their relationship is not formula based. This is harder, and would basically just mean you need to predetermine what you want each individual weapon type to do. You will want to come up with a base set of statistics to apply to the weapons (you probably want to do this anyway, or have already considered this) and then just come up with a table of the different tower types and their stats.

Usually this means things like:

Fire rate.
Range.
Initial Damage.
Splash Damage.
Splash Radius.
Damage Over Time.
Damage Over Time Duration.
Slowing
Slowing Duration


If you can provide more information about the game idea then we could try and puzzle it out further, but I hope the above helps some.

Thanks PyroDragon - it does help.
I think I've started from the wrong end - instead of creating stats for weapons/magic etc. I've started with enemies.

Game concept is pretty simple: you start with a single "tower" and you can upgrade it's speed & damage. Then you can add magical shots to it [4 elements]. You can start every element, however you can reach max on only one of them. In the meantime, when upgrading magic you will gain access to spells, which basically have an area of damage of specific element. When maxxed out user will be able to use super spell - basically kills everything on screen.
All of the upgrades are money based, so I can limit access to some of the upgrades by making them more expensive.
And another twist - user can buy some 'obstacles' on the way of enemies. These will have to be destroyed prior getting to the "finish line".

I would also like to create three difficulty settings: easy, normal, hard. At first I thought about changing the amount of money user can gain, which will make it easier or harder to get the upgrades, but now it doesn't seem to be enough. But this is step two - I think it will be easier to differentiate game difficulty once I get the "normal" stats done.


Anyway, thanks for help, I think I will try to do the stats now.

Thanks PyroDragon - it does help.
I think I've started from the wrong end - instead of creating stats for weapons/magic etc. I've started with enemies.

Game concept is pretty simple: you start with a single "tower" and you can upgrade it's speed & damage. Then you can add magical shots to it [4 elements]. You can start every element, however you can reach max on only one of them. In the meantime, when upgrading magic you will gain access to spells, which basically have an area of damage of specific element. When maxxed out user will be able to use super spell - basically kills everything on screen.
All of the upgrades are money based, so I can limit access to some of the upgrades by making them more expensive.
And another twist - user can buy some 'obstacles' on the way of enemies. These will have to be destroyed prior getting to the "finish line".

I would also like to create three difficulty settings: easy, normal, hard. At first I thought about changing the amount of money user can gain, which will make it easier or harder to get the upgrades, but now it doesn't seem to be enough. But this is step two - I think it will be easier to differentiate game difficulty once I get the "normal" stats done.


Anyway, thanks for help, I think I will try to do the stats now.

Once you have the root gameplay figured out then balancing the game for harder difficulties is usually quite simple to do - for a tower defense type game anyway. Usually these can be termed adjusted with stock percentage multipliers for various items to get the right balance:

Increasing Health/Armor of enemies.
Increasing Spawn Rate.
Increasing tower/upgrade cost.
Decreasing money gained.

Generically I think that the upgrade and tower costs are usually static through all the difficulties. This means that through experience you already know how much a tower will cost if you're playing on a different difficulty. Adjusting the toughness of the enemies, and decreasing the amount you gain is usually enough to balance the game's difficulty - although if your game has more complicated than the typical TD game, this may be harder to do.