Bale dev log

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guo
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Bale dev log

Post by guo »

Good day, gentlepeople.

I want to discuss combat, more particularly in my entry for the HotOHR contest. One of the main criticisms of my entry was that the combat was boring, repetitive, and perhaps too simple. I would first like to explain my thoughts behind Bale's current combat system and then offer some solutions and ideas. Your feedback would be greatly appreciated and welcomed.

Combat in Bale is of course simple, but it did have some thought go into it. Basic attacks target the closest enemy, dealing damage using the standard formula for attack and defence, as well as accuracy. Most projectile spells have no such targeting restriction, but a limited amount of uses based on FF1-style MP. While a basic system, I believe there was plenty of room for complexity but it was not apparent given the extremely limited variations in enemy encounters in my first dungeon.

For example, you are facing off against a spellcaster + several minions. The spellcaster is situated further back, meaning your basic attacks can only target the melee-focused minions in front. Do you spam basic attacks to maximise your damage output? Or do you throw down some spells early on to take out the spellcaster, who may be healing or buffing his friends? Perhaps you want to spend a couple of rounds buffing, with the caveat that you accrue damage or allow the enemy to buff themselves. Your strategy will be based on your knowledge of the enemies you are facing as well as the resources at your disposal (ie mana, health, items).

I am looking to add some additional complexity to this system to make it more interesting and less generic/boring. I'm going to spitball some of these ideas and hope that I can get some feedback and discussion going:

Code: Select all

*In addition to attack/defence, there is a stat called POISE 
*Most physical based attacks deal standard atk/defence based damage, but then have a chance to chain to a 2nd command
*This 2nd command deals additional damage based on POISE as both the attacking and defending stat
*POISE decays after use of basic attacks & certain skills. Riskier/more damaging skills will deplete POISE faster
*An invisible, untargetable enemy will restore some POISE (perhaps 10 or 20% of maximum) after every round or 2nd round 
*Elemental resistances will be used to affect the amount of POISE restored between rounds
Now, would you spam basic attacks? Your poise would be lowered, therefore you would deal less damage over time, as well as running the risk of taking more damage from enemy attacks that use poise. Enemies such as animals or other lesser creatures would have a lower poise, so the risk isn't as great. A highly trained swordsman might have a rather significant poise stat, so you would have to be more careful with how you approach - perhaps defending or buffing yourself until you surmise that the enemy's poise is lowered enough that you can deal more significant damage.

Of course, it is going to take a balancing act to make this work effectively. Damage from poise should be significant and difference-making, while not completely overshadowing damage from more traditional sources. I also want to ensure that thought is required, rather than the best option being to just spam damage and healing.

What pitfalls can you see with this system? Does it sound interesting, fun, convoluted, redundant or ... ? What changes would you make? Do you have any other interesting ideas or thoughts?

Many thanks for reading.
Last edited by guo on Mon Oct 24, 2016 3:41 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Post by Nathan Karr »

The ranged spell you get at the start should be more powerful too. It should at least be able to consistently one-shot the weaker type of ghul, for how expensive it is to use.

The whole thing about targeting the nearest enemy with melee? I'm using that in my unreleased game too - clearly we were both thinking about the same kinds of tactical decisions.

But having a design element potentially present on paper is not the same as actually implementing it; there's no reason to toss a magic missile at the hairy ghul instead of just spamming the melee attack and hoping it doesn't buff its Hits to wreck you with in the meantime.
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Post by guo »

Right, but it's early in the game and I understand that it's hard to grasp the usefulness of that spell with the limited variety of enemies at that particular section. It's main strength lies in being able to target any enemy rather than the closest, as well as cancelling the enemy's attack (if that attack is "cancellable" - not all are). I agree that when fighting 1-2 ghuls spamming the basic is the best and most consistent strategy.
I want to have different playstyles be viable and I think, as you and others have mentioned, the spell itself is not as effective if you haven't augmented your speed to a higher level than your opponents. I think the spell will be useful as an alternate attack later in the game (when you actually have enough uses to not worry about running out), but I definitely need to incentivize it's use early game (especially considering it's the first spell you learn.)

Thanks for the response.
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Post by guo »

I am considering/toying with the idea of reducing the number of stats to a bare minimum. If so, it would look like this:


* Attack stat gone - attack strength of enemies represented through the damage of their special attacks.

* Defence stat gone, elemental resistances take it's place. (Feature request - ability to change elemental resistances during combat.)

* Magic/willpower gets the same treatment.

*Poise would be used as a damage multiplier. Decays after attacks/skills are used but a certain amount is restored per round.

* Wishing I could set accuracy/dodging stats like I can with attack/defence. That way I could roll speed and dodging together into one stat.

Then we'd have :

HP
MP/FF1 MP
Speed
Elemental resistances

Just spitballin'. Thoughts?
Last edited by guo on Wed Aug 31, 2016 12:23 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by msw188 »

I have not played your game, or any 1-player video game in some time. However, I thought I might weigh in here.

The biggest problem I see with the Poise stat is the necessity to communicate all of this information within the game, and it's a lot of information for the middle of a battle. This means the battle has to slow down to the point where the player has time to read and take into account the changes in Poise. In anything other than a boss battle, is this added time and thought really worth it?

In most RPGs, battles are obstacles. The player wants to win the battle while minimizing two things:
1. statistical costs (HP lost, MP used up, items used, etc etc)
2. time spent (longer battle = less time making progress in the game's world)

Notice that, in the absence of any spells/special systems, these two goals go hand in hand. The less time spent fighting, typically the less HP lost. So we ask, is a system that forces (2) to grow in order to minimize (1) really 'fun' enough to make the player's conflict of interest worthwhile?

Most people agree that, in FF3(6), Cyan is one of the least helpful and least fun characters to use. This is because his skill which ostensibly helps minimize (1) requires increasing (2) with dead time. The idea of having your hero wait out a high-Poise enemy's Poise stat with defense and buffs is not that different from this. It requires more thought sure, but the end result is the same - forcing (1) and (2) to be in direct opposition.

Elemental resistances/weaknesses are NOT like this. They require thought, but the end result is that the player who takes advantage of them offensively manages to lower both (1) and (2) at the same time.

With all of this in mind, the best way to incentivize the use of an attack is to make sure that that attack minimizes both (1) and (2) simultaneously for certain battles. Usually to keep things interesting, we try to make sure there isn't just one attack that accomplishes both for ALL battles.
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guo
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Post by guo »

I played around with "poise". You're right that displaying all the info is too much to take in during a battle. It could be a "behind the scenes" calculation, with the player only seeing the direct damage output. That way they could extrapolate what is going on for themselves.
As it stands, I have removed poise and am sticking with how combat was in the demo, but I am retooling the stats & abilities to be more useful, as well as adding more variety early game. If there were a way to add "poise" as an additional damage multiplier I would, as I like the idea of "stances" and their bearing on combat, but I would have to program everything from scratch to achieve that so it's out.

So atm:

-Ghuls have more HP, less attack damage, lower willpower
-Heroes' sorcery stat increased (=more magical damage)
-Accuracy increased on Lint's attacks
-Better/more captioning

Next:

-More variety in early game abilities/spells for the heroes
-Patterns (with captioned tells) for the ghuls, further specialization of the 3 ghul types
-More diversity of encounters in starting area

This should make combat more interesting & fun, hopefully.

Also, James or TMC - any chance that we can change which stats are called on to determine chance-to-hit in the same way we can set attack/defence stats for damage?
Last edited by guo on Thu Sep 01, 2016 12:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

guo wrote:Also, James or TMC - any chance that we can change which stats are called on to determine chance-to-hit in the same way we can set attack/defence stats for damage?
Yes, that is certainly a thing that could happen in the future
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Post by guo »

Wonderful!
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Post by guo »

Updates:

Basic attack of all Ghuls is now based on blunt formula - they will deal less damage than before but will still be a threat in large numbers later in the game.

New Ghul type -

Code: Select all

Hieroghul:
*Slightly higher HP & willpower than normal Ghul
*Slaps ghuls, hurting them but raising their attack

Changes made to existing Ghul types:

Code: Select all

Zoghul renamed to Ghulet:
*Lower attack & HP than normal Ghul
*Slightly higher Willpower
*Can raise it's own dodging
*Has a minor healing spell

Code: Select all

Ghul:
*Attack lowered, HP increased
*Willpower lowered
*Frenzy increases it's "hits" ie number of attacks made

Code: Select all

Rhagul renamed to Cyghul:
*Cyghul is blind, will either loaf around for a turn, attack a random friend or foe (ignoring muted heroes), or frenzy (increase it's "hits" stat)
*Higher attack & HP than other Ghuls, but lower accuracy
*If it is hit by a hero's physical attack it will immediately counter attack 
*If slapped into action by the Hieroghul it will attack the player

Added some new starting techniques for the player, which do not use any resources:

Code: Select all

*Thwart - attacks with priority, but deals less damage
*Charge - won't attack until next combat round, but will deal triple damage
*Focus - raise accuracy
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Post by guo »

*Lowered Ghul HP in general.
*Tweaked more stats
*Ghuls give a little more XP for raising Tier (ie magic, FF1 MP, willpower)
*Mons Anima stat changes increased from +1 to +2 for normal stats, and from +2 to +5 for HP.
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Post by guo »

*Lint has "chomp" as a basic attack
*Raised cost of Spume to 2
*Lint's MP no longer restores after battle
*Lint & Player's heal spell both usable outside of battle, and player's spell can now revive dead allies
*Lint's abilities have increased accuracy
*Reverted Ghul's attack to normal damage formula - blunt was negating defense (such as barrier & fortibru potion)

Is there a way to name formation sets ? It would make things easier when editing maps.

Regards.
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Post by guo »

Work continues, mapping has taken up quite a bit of time recently. I have only just now started to add dialogue for the next part of the game.

Most what was seen in the HotOHR entry has been revised significantly, but the basic outline of the early game remains the same (in terms of goals/story). I am now working on what happens after that section, when the gameworld has opened up quite a bit. Expect more freeform gameplay, with plenty of exploration, secrets, lore, interaction and sidequests. While early releases may seem a little spartan, due to the current focus on geography & mapping, rest assured that I have planned in advance loads of content to fill in the spaces.

The story is mostly laid out, flavour and details will be added as I go.

Combat, as mentioned earlier in this thread, has been overhauled. I believe it is in a much more interesting and fun place than it was before, but I will leave that to others to judge. Feedback, as always, is much appreciated.

Some WIP screenshots attached.
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Post by guo »

Working on a mine/cave tileset.
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Post by Gizmog »

These tiles are fantastic! That one with the combination of stone and water and grass really feels dark and atmospheric. Great color choice in particular! I like the battle backdrop too, nicely styled.
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Post by guo »

Why thankyou!
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