Battle System for upcoming RP, Accepting suggestions too. Options

[Sparrowsmith]

I couldn't let someone else make the chart, I'm inventing this thing so the confusing burden is all mine I'll get on it tonight, see what I can come up with...

Okay, this is what I whipped up

[Show/Hide] Not for the faint of heart

10 - means player 1 does damage
01 - means player 2 does damage
11 - pretty obvious
00 - pretty obvious.

In retrospect I could have made this MUCH clearer.

RULES:
Counter and Parry can ONLY be used if the opponent just did an attack (red)
Dodge can be used at any time, but you CANNOT go from a Dodge straight into an attack (you have to get back up off the floor)
Tackles are almost always successful, but only do damage against Blocking. There's no logical reason for this, tackling was just underpowered and blocking was overpowered. Make up your own insane justifications.
You must change stance every turn.


What the fuck does this mean?!:
CO - Close offensive
RO - Ranged offensive
SO - Strong offensive
TA - Tackle
PA - Parry
C - Counter
DO - Dodge
BL - Blocking
O - Open

Edit:
The chart is wrong, there are two NAs on the far right that should be 00s. Open's a ridiculous stance anyway, so I can't imagine it will cause a problem. This is just a draft anyway.

[Ryuga]

Seems like alot, but then again, I can't really see how we can trim it down.
I'm up for a pm test round.

[Sparrowsmith]

PM me your first move (we'll keep it simple, just say what you're changing your stance to and whether it results in damage).
For sake of ease we will assume all players start in blocking. This means that the first player to move can deal damage, but only by using the most vulnerable attacks (Tackle and Strong Offensive).

During the RP I would recommend that both players act as if attacks come in two parts:
Blocking
Tackle
Parry
Close offensive
Counter
"1 blocks"
"2 breaks through the block with a tackle" 0:1
"As 2 attempts to knock 1 over, 1 steps aside and deals a hit of his own" 1:1
"2 returns with a close up attack, but fails to break through 1's parry" 1:1
"1 counters with a successful hit" 2:1

Note, the above encounter relies on player 2 forgetting that OC are useless on parries, but I expect this will happen from time to time.

In retrospect, there's actually a decent amount of functionality with these stances. There's about how many moves you'd expect if you were playing a game... Or chess.
If it was a game for xbox or something:
A + Direction = Dodge
A = Block
X = Close offensive
Hold X = Strong Offensive
Y = Ranged offensive
B = Tackle
RB (after an attack) = Counter
LB (after an attack) = Parry
Nothing = Open

Decent controls really... I'd play it

[Sparrowsmith]

if still needed:

[Show/Hide] Battle System 2.0

Testing begins immediately, if anyone wants to put it to the test, PM me.

Rules:
10 - means player 1 does (1) damage
01 - means player 2 does (1) damage
11 - pretty obvious
00 - pretty obvious.
20 - means player 1 does (2) damage
02 - means player 2 does (2) damage

Counter and Parry can ONLY be used if the opponent just did an attack (red)
Dodge can be used at any time, but you CANNOT go from a Dodge straight into an attack (you have to get back up off the floor)
Tackles are almost always successful, but only do damage against Blocking. There's no logical reason for this, tackling was just underpowered and blocking was overpowered. Make up your own insane justifications.
You must change stance every turn.

CO - Close offensive
QO - Quick offensive
SO - Strong offensive
TA - Tackle
PA - Parry
C - Counter
DO - Dodge
BL - Blocking
O - Open

General rule of thumb: Most attacks (red) do damage to anything but defense (blue) but are weak against other attacks. Support (yellow) are good for countering strong attacks, strategy moves, and breaking through defenses.
This is only a general rule of thumb, suggestions are appreciated/necessary to get this working properly.

Edit:
BOTH PLAYERS START IN BLOCKING STANCE... My bad for not mentioning this before....

[Nicsp]

Amazing work. I will gladly test it, I'll pm you in a minute.

[Sparrowsmith]

Don't praise me yet, we have to see how it works I toyed with the idea of adding another stance (side step) along with some other rules maybe, and the numbers aren't perfect yet.
It'll probably be fully functional by the third.

[Moonpearl]

Just stumbling over the topic and didn't take time to read everything. I was just thinking, you might want to add a mechanic which makes it so, that the longer you stay in the same stance, the more powerful it becomes. This would give the winner an advantage, but on the other hand make his moves more and more predictable, and thus easier to counter. Let me take an example, sticking to the Rock-Paper-Scissors standard:

A plays Rock, B plays Scissors => A wins and gains 1 point. If A wins again using Rock, he will gain 2 points instead. So the obvious move for B is to play Paper. But, knowing that B will probably play Paper, A might want to give up his advantage at Rock and play Scissors instead.

Then again, it does not sound very exciting with a mere Rock-Paper-Scissors system because there are two few options. Now let us consider a 5-options Rock-Paper-Scissors (infamously known as Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock), of which rules I state below:

• Rock beats Scissors and Lizard
• Paper beats Rock and Spock
• Scissors beat Paper and Lizard
• Lizard beats Paper and Spock
• Spock beats Scissors and Rock

Just as the standard Rock-Paper-Scissors, it is a perfectly balanced game, in which each move beats 2 other ones and is beaten by 2 other ones. Let us try the ascending mechanic with it:

A plays Rock, B plays Scissors => A wins and gains 1 point. Since A has an advantage at using Rock again, B will consider using either Paper or Spock. Now for A, the obvious choice is to play Lizard instead of Rock, since it beats both Paper and Spock. Knowing that, B might want to take a chance at a move which beats Lizard, instead of Rock. Then again, if A DOES play Rock, they're in for some serious trouble. It all goes down to a game of guessing where each player knows what the other knows and have to take a decision based on how deep they think their opponent will read.

The idea is still rough as such, but more generally, seeing a fight as a whole process rather than as a sequence of unconnected actions might help the system grow more interesting.

[Sparrowsmith]

The problem with rock paper scissors (or any variant) is that both moves must be done simultaneously. In the stance system I'm working on there are two turns to each stance, like so:
Close offensive verses Blocking (0-0)
Close offensive verses Counter (0-2) (Player 1 has had to stay on his previous stance)
Strong offensive verses Counter (1-2) (Player 2 has had to stay on his previous stance)

So it's a kind of turn-taking system. There can't be balance in a turn taking system, there must be obvious strategies that get you ahead of the game, otherwise points just bounce back and forth and the first person to deal damage wins.
I've found that (like real life) the best way to rack up points is to make a defensive move, which forces your opponent to either use a weaker attack or to defend themselves, at which point you strike with something more worthwhile.

Staying on a stance though wouldn't work because, as said, it's a turn taking system.