Hey, I have a couple of questions for you. I am in the process of making a game, action-rpg based if you wanna know... Anyhow, I have heard that in some games there are certain choices that are never really turned down, or always used (such as ultima in Ff3/ff6j), yea some of you might not have used it, but the vast majority of people used ultima and wreaked havok upon any creature they fought. Now on to the question part, as I am making an action-rpg I wanna keep away from the kind of choices where people continually pick the same attack over and over. What can I do besides what is listed below to help my players pick a variety of stuff? I have come up with a couple of ideas so far, give your thoughts on them, if they would work, anything else you wanna add... 1). Let the players/enemies predict the next attack and give a bonus to a type of defense vs it. 2). Change defense so it is split into two types, and offense for two types, giving me more combinations of weakeness'' and strengths. (causing a change in attacks vs a certain type of people) There isn''t much I can do about stopping them from picking what they want (I could, but I am not going to), but I would rather refine my system in order to compensate for it. Right now there is no difference in defense/offense stats as far as physical and -magical- attacks go, but it would make sense to go with it either way. Like I said before, any advice would probably be helpful, thanks in advance. If you want more information just ask, it may take me a little while to respond though, I don''t check here -that- often. "Practice means good, Perfect Practice means Perfect"

I think that there can be very powerful attacks, but usually they have some other kind of drawback to using them. Also, some attacks were only meant for certain situations. Take melee combat for example. Jumping kicks were originally developed to knock a rider off a horse. They are actually very poor attacks against a prepared opponent, but if they connect do tremendous damage. Axes are extremely potent weapons, but they have a long recovery time (when you swing the moment carries, so it''s hard to react defensively). A rapier will never beat back a claymore or peetrate armor, but it''s twice as fast and just as lethal against a non-armored opponent. Some weapons or attacks require more skill to wield.

Generally speaking, if any one attack dominates, something is wrong with the system. That being said however, there is something to be said for attacks which are so powerful or effective, that "he who strikes first also strikes last". The Japanese called this Ai Nuke....mutual destruction. Basically they felt that 1/3rd of the time you would win, 1/3rd of the time, the other person would win, and 1/3rd of the time both of you would die from your wounds inflicted on each other. So 2/3rd''s of the time you would die. It required a very different mindset (much like a mindset change between playing Rainbow6 and playing Quake). If you develop a RPG with a battle system with realistic damage modeling, it may make players think twice about combat.

Yea I would really like to favour defense... I hate how in armored core... well the biggest weapons that do the most damage in the shortest amount of time take nearly no skill, and the ones with less damage, or more ammo take a little less skill, but will almost always lose to the big juggernaut... Depends on the independant skill levels of the players... Even with the fastest mech its hard to dodge the guass rifle things.

Anyhow I think I may have solved my problem. I am implementing a -charging- system. To put it into something you can understand, its like only being able to cast ultima once every couple rounds, but not taking the whole time to cast or wait.

100 (full) - 85 (ultima) = 15 (latent mana available)
15 + 30 (gained every round, unless current mana is at max usable, possibly goes up if you want to work on it) = 45, but can still do regular attacks, or a weaker attack...

I am still interested in any other interesting ideas you might have though...

*edit* : Oh, it wasn't that I had too powerful of attacks, it was just the fact that... well think of a mage with the spell fireball. Then think of it as his most powerful spell, with a high probability to hit(among his highest)... then imagine him using it all the time, then take away the fact that I cannot insert stuff that is resistant to fire(for reasons I don't wanna discuss). Why would he ever use something that has a less chance to hit, or does less damage, or both when he could just use fireball?... that is the essense of what I was trying to destroy, and I think I have discovered it... *edit*

*edit 2* : The damage system is realistic. Specific body parts are hit, and possibly damaged with real effects to combat and... everything else. *edit 2*

"Practice means good, Perfect Practice means Perfect"

[edited by - kingruss on May 4, 2002 10:10:41 PM]

[edited by - kingruss on May 4, 2002 10:13:46 PM]

Take a look at Wild Arms 2, and Vagrant Story. WA2 did a nifty thing where you required a base amount of Force Power before hand, so that you couldn't kill all of the opponents on the first round of battle. The post above me says something to that affect. With Vagrant Story, Magic was generally useless and required you to go out of your way to use it. And melee combat was biased by a "Risk" system which made your attacks less effective if you tryed doing too many attacks at once.

Basically, you just have to mix things up a bit. Don't just give the player a single counter that everything taps into. You could try giving every individual spell an individual charge, and send the player on some routine to recovering those charges. Its a possibility.

-> Will Bubel
-> Machine wash cold, tumble dry.


[edited by - inmate2993 on May 4, 2002 11:15:52 PM]

I actually have Vagrant story... I was thinking of adding a stress bar(meter/number) to the game, because stress is ... physical stress runs throughout the game. If you tried to use too much -magic- that bulked up your muscles, or anything else of the matter, your stress bar would rise up and your combat would be less effective. It also might help me keep a tab on pain (the number 1 disregarded thing in combat). Funny how you can take 9998 points of damage (with still living) and most likely go on like nothing happened (or go down to one knee, and increase your damage with a lucky hit). Its almost like dnd, pain isn''t accounted for anywhere in there... but then again, there are probably reasons for that.

So I have:
Stress, latent mana, split-defense/offense, predicting opponents next attack... Hmmm... I think I can say problem solved... any other things about combat you guys have ideas for?

I think its a good concept but has the pontential to destroy gameplay. I would hate to have to think about what I was going to do to kill a quilrat in diablo, or a leafer in FF3. There were times when the random battle could get really annoying, I would just hit A untill it was over (fight being the default command). So maybe the frequency of battles should be modified. Or what the origional poster stated only be applied to special monsters and bosses. In otherwords, the same mundane method used to kill the leafer (bad example) done 10 times over wont kill the powerfull boss monster, you would have to use another method cause the boss somehow knew what you wanted to do =)

Personally, I think that completely random combat (à la FFVI) should be avoided. It always got on my nerves. I am among those who hold FFVI and Chrono Trigger to be the best games ever made for the SNES, but of the two I prefer the latter, and largely because the random combat element is toned down. If the combat serves no real purpose as a plot or atmospheric device, and the combat system isn''t really that interesting (after all, in FFVI you just choose an option and let it fly), it should either be optional or removed. (In FFVI you obviously need these fights to collect experience, but if they were reduced, you''d just have to change the experience system as well. I was never a fan of level based RPG''s, anyway.)

Lets see, how do I explain the combat system. First off let me say this, you would be able to destroy weaker enemies (such as a leafer, if it existed) with the same move over and over again, easily too! Anyhow... the battle system is like this: It is a 3d adventure like game... think zelda, but you can fly and jump really high. Now think of your opponents as just doing their own thing, and if you run into one... (you are incorrect, it doesn''t change combat scenes, hehehe) you fight in the same screen you are in, but not every other thing is an enemy... even evil things -might- not attack you. Opponents have... well... varied ai. There is also no -real- level system... that one is harder to explain, and I am not gonna explain it(I don''t think I am).

Summary: Same move over and over again == leafer death, same move over and over again vs. bigger thing == your death. No random battles, no levels. Fun mini games!?... oh yea, Anyone know how to get some awesomely fun mini games in their, that will be for training(you can train for -xp- in the game...)Mostly they would be based on some standard stats...