The First Layer, In-depth Options

[MEands]

Ooh. A set number of enemies. Large enemies that patrol the room and such.

[Sparrowsmith]

great.
What we really want is to make sure you can't get from one side to the other without fighting an enemy. It has to be a challenge that pushes the limits of the battle system.
Perhaps we could string it all into one battle, than way there's no experience until the end, and no chance to heal, just one relentless battle.

[MEands]

Oh perhaps, but we should also give them the option to escape the room if they've walked in by accident.

How would we make it all string together though?

[bulmabriefs144]

Basically this.

It's a large room with a ton of enemies, if you can get past all of them you'll have bypassed a large part of the game, but perhaps you get a different type of boss fight.

Yea that was more or less my thought. Quick question, is the boss sitting on like a throne in that room? Or do you have to get through that room, and the upper path has some side door to the next room that passes all that? That is, do we have something more like this, where enemies can't directly get to you while you're on the bridge (picture 1), or more a separate room deal (like picture 2)?





You could do rapid succession battles. That is, on an event if you have this code:

Encounter: Slimex3
Encounter: Soldierx2
Encounter: Behemothx10

After you kill the slime, it does the next battle with no save or fleeing in between. That or we could just have hordes of advancing enemy sprites.

-------------------------------

If we do the chained battles, we should use the following events.

Parallel Process, Above, MonsterHordes is ON (turned on if you enter downstairs, turned off if exiting the room)
Variable, Random (1-whatever)*
Wait 0.1
End Event

*(Alternatively, you can have a counter system with each step taken somehow)
--> If Key Pressed is Up/Down/Left/Right
--> +1 variable

Parallel Process, Above, If variable is (whatever the max number was)
Wait 0.1
Encounter:
Encounter:
Encounter:
Encounter:
Encounter:
Encounter:
Encounter:
Encounter:
Encounter:
Encounter:
Encounter: (etc)
Wait 0.1
Erase Event/reset variable to 0

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Sep 30 2012, 05:46 PM

[MEands]

I was at first thinking he would be sitting in the throne room, but then I kinda thought maybe that'd be too...obvious. But maybe if we make it really hard.

Also, I hate chain battles, I hate anything that alters the battle, because when you're in a battle sequence, you are all but blind to anything else happening in the world. It will feel hopeless if we don't give the player some sort of way to know where they are in the whole mess.

[Sparrowsmith]

an opening means the player can exploit it though.

isn't there a way to reveal enemies during a battle and have more come in?
If we have the characters talk about their options pre-fight, and use a save point, then I'm pretty sure all our players will get the idea.
Then we have the battle, occasionally with shouted commands:
player health below x
-character y alive
--message: Y, heal!

Then as each wave of enemies is defeated, there could be a brief respite while still on the battle screen.
Message: "Okay, lick your wounds, get ready."
-small health increase/statuses removed-
Message: "Here they come!"
-more enemies appear-

So it's one long extensive battle. We never leave the screen. Maybe after three rounds the player is offered the ability to retreat.
Message: "We can't hold them off, we've got to back down!"
choice:
-Never!
-Retreat!


If anyone's played FFVII (who am I kidding, most of us have I'm sure) I'm basically describing the arena battles, but with dialogue.

[MEands]

Oh okay, that sounds better. And I actually haven't played FFVII ;_; don't judge me.

But yeah, I think we've got this room set now.
I think it's appearance should still show a ton of enemies in the room. You should be able to dodge a few of them until one of them hits you and initiates the battle sequence (which triggers the whole chain)

[Sparrowsmith]

Okay, but if you reach a certain point then the battle should begin regardless.

And the arena battles looks like this in FFVII http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifzVjY3I4C0
Jump to about 2.20 to see the relevant bit.

[bulmabriefs144]

Yea... that doesn't really work. Exiting out of battles quickly and re-entering works, reviving or transforming works, but making more troops appear, not so much. What you end up having is something more like FF6, where maybe one or two groups of hidden enemies can appear, but no more than 8 or so enemies total, then you need a new battle (as shown in the Esper battles where they'd tend to have short cutscenes between floods of enemies) or to do something creative. You'd need to script to get it to behave differently, and this would require really knowing what you're doing or it might crash the battle system.

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Oct 3 2012, 02:23 PM

[Sparrowsmith]

Eight enemies would be fine.
That's four battles with two enemies, or two battles with three enemies and one battle with two enemies.
Then we can take a quick respite, where the group discusses whether they should retreat or not.
Then you have a eight more enemies and then you're done.

Of course, we want these enemies to be so tough that if you do anything wrong, then you'll suffer damage that will slow you down for all the battles. If you manage to take the enemy down in the most efficient way, then the slight healing after each battle will recoup your losses. If you're less than efficient, then you'll be going into each fight with slightly less health.
This accumulates until you're either dead by the middle point, or just barely alive.
If they go for this path, we must demand perfection of them.

Perhaps, just maybe, if the player can complete every single obstacle in the game with absolute perfection, we can award them with something, but it's mostly for bragging rights.
Plenty of people hack games so they can fight the final boss at level 8. They then film it, put it online, and boast that they don't need level to win the game, THEY are just so damn good they could do it from the start.
Other people like to grind in games so much that it defeats the purpose of the plot. To use FFVII again, there is an enemy called the Midgar Zolem who you're not supposed to defeat. Once you get around it, the big bad guy of the game kills it, proving how tough he is. My brother is especially fond of training his characters until he can kill the Zolem in one hit, and then laughing as the heroes find the Zolem dead.
What I'm trying to say is, people like a challenge.

But yeah. a total of 16 enemies should be enough for this battle marathon, we just make the enemies super hard.

[bulmabriefs144]

Make it an even 25 (24, and the last enemy, upon dying, morphs into a miniboss). Two waves, even of tough enemies, the average person isn't two upset over. But three waves of heavy hitters? Well...

Make it 2 waves back to back (no healing between the first two, minor heal after), to wear the characters down. The third is to test endurance, and the boss is to sort out the pros. If you lose to the 3rd wave rather than the second or first, there's a nonstandard loss, where the party says something like "they just keep coming" and there's a leaving the room cutscene where they dodge around enemies blocking the way out.

We should have actual enemy charsets closing in rather than just a sudden battle, for more of a dramatic effect.

[Sparrowsmith]

So we'll have a series of enemies, then we'll cut back to the map and show more enemies approaching, then another series, then another approach, then another series and a boss?
Sounds good to me.

[MEands]

Maybe if there's a second series of enemies we should give the player a chance to escape then. ANd lets make sure they're stronger enemies so the player doesn't just feel that it's been reset.

[Sparrowsmith]

Of course. My idea for the battle system is that the enemy will try to anticipate your next move, so battles are about tricking and deceiving your opponent. Harder enemies just have to be harder to trick.

[bulmabriefs144]

If we want something like this, we should probably have the party and monsters with equal agility and no way to adjust (haste yes, but not agility equips or seeds) so that it's more a turn-based thing. We'd probably be lucky just to get the enemy to try to counter, prediction is a losing business since people think differently. For instance, fire spells might all inflict burn status, ice does slow freeze, thunder does shock. None of these outright disable action, so the enemy responds either with trying to dispel the status or by buffing their fire/ice/thunder defense in preparation for coming attacks when afflicted by status.

[Sparrowsmith]

well, however we do it, I'd like the battles to feel thought out.
Too many games are just about spamming your best attack, or picking the right move. I want a system where you feel like you're outsmarting enemies, and where it seems like they're outsmarting you.

Some enemies are capable of auto-counters.
If you charge up a powerful attack, they will automatically begin defending. If you try to make them weak to fire, they'll make themselves strong against fire, but not every time.
It's about calling bluffs, anticipation. I sometimes play poker, and the appeal of the game is in trying to think what your opponents are trying to make you do. Eventually it's not even about the cards (or the attacks) it's about what card they're trying to make you think they have.
Maybe an enemy when it's low on health will 'charge up' for a big attack, which means you'll probably start casting defensive attacks, but then the enemy heals itself instead, and you have to spend your next turn coming out of defense.
The enemy just tricked you.

[bulmabriefs144]

Although I'd like a firm strategy, I'd like to shy away from the whole anticipation thing.

I once played this game called DBZ: Super Gokuden 2. Although I like the whole thing where stuff is turn-based this basically ground down to a giant game of rock paper scissors (fine for elemental strengths and weaknesses, not so much for battle order). Put me to sleep.

To keep the game fun to play, not EVERY common enemy should be a strategic master. The further along ones definitely, but there should be several types of enemy:

1. Mook: fairly easy to kill, even with a basic attack strategy, usually in swarms of 5-8 at once. Forces you to either take a bunch of small hits or use a nuke style magic attack, wearing down either hp or mp
2. Heavy Hitter: Forces you to block/heal/ and end the battle quickly. High attack, but low hp and def.
3. Tank: a heavy hitter, but with high def and hp. Can buff and/or heal themselves, usually. This and the heavy hitter type will probably be our creatures. The key here, is that don't counter everything you do or always use the right strategy, but in key points they buff themselves. For instance, we needn't (and in fact shouldn't) have them buff versus fire when you use fire. Instead, they should buff to compensate their pre-existing weaknesses, usually on the first round, and then again after about 5 or 10 turns. Healing should be when at 30% remaining hp or something.
4. Elementals: Uses a type of magic, weak to another.
5. Magician: Uses multiple types of magic. Usually resistant/immune to magic, vulnerable to physical attacks/skills. More advanced ones will be able to use buffs/debuffs and even healing.
6. Mastermind: This type of enemy actually adapts around your actions, like mentioned above. It changes weaknesses, casts all manner of buffs, and can cast and attack equally well. This is a boss or a tough enemy. Despite all this, the mastermind usually has some weakness it CAN'T prepare for, something it overlooked. A warmage for instance, might be immune to all magic that it thinks you'll cast (and swap immunities), such as light, fire, ice, thunder, but have not realized one of your party members is actually proficient in darkness magic. If it's a boss, it might adjust at the last second, throwing all of its defense into darkness immunity, at the expense of everything else.
8. Ooze/Ghost: Completely avoids physical attacks. Vulnerable to magic. These might have specific weaknesses, and will zap you with sludge, dirt, or slime that lowers your immunity to other magic.
7. Flying: Partially or completely avoids physical attacks. Might overlap with the breakable armor (can be knocked out of the sky) or with the ghost strategy.
8. Breakable Armor: The enemy is completely immune to all but one approach. Damaging it shifts its weaknesses to normal. Alternatively, this is a two (or in rare cases, three) step process. For instance, a boss in Mana Khemia is made from glass, and has to be heated, then cooled to shatter its armor.
9. Magical Beast: A combination of some of the worst traits of the mastermind, and the tank. Loads of hp, heavy hitting in magic/attack, possibly the ability to reflect and/or regen. Possibly involves some odd/complicated strategy to put it down for good. It's usually not about your damage, since these types are often susceptible to poison or mana drain, and your damage does little good unless you're like level 99. (Atma weapon of FF3, and Sanctuary Keeper of FFX are prime examples)
10. Leader: Summons monsters. These can be among any of the above types. The leader is usually designed to outlast the enemies slain or is outright immune to damage so long as there are other enemies. These battles usually end with the leader still alive (they flee when all enemies are done), or with the character getting killed off once enemies are no longer summoned.
11. Counterspell: Not offensively strong. Instead, they get rid of buffs on the party, and get rid of bad status effects of their allies. Basically, they slow you down by forcing you to recast. Usually combo'd with a heavy hitter or two.
12. Evolving Enemy: Changes form and strategy when defeated or close to death. Almost always a boss. This is usually in fact a final boss, because it allows the boss to have more than one of these.

So you see, an enemy that buffs around everything is only one strategy, and it's a mistake to play all enemies this way. I do think we should have turn-based system tho.

For this area, I see heavy hitters for the first wave. I see tanks and flying for the second wave. The boss is a mastermind and leader, and the others are oozes/ghosts, elementals, heavy magicians (pairs of each), and finally a magical beast. Once all of these are killed off, the leader becomes weak to attack, but still able to use a bunch of buffs to tweak its weaknesses in anticipation or response to yours.

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Oct 13 2012, 06:45 PM

[Sparrowsmith]

Well of course we'll need variations of enemies, but I don't want to be cliche.
I don't want people to load up the game and know how to kill all of our enemies because they've already killed them in a thousand games. I want to make the battles more interactive than that.

You're fighting a fire elemental.
You cast an ice attack.
Massive damage.
It retaliates by 'warming up' which does damage to your whole party and raises its own defenses.
It uses a lot of its MP to do this though.

Even Mooks should behave like real animals.
If they're a pack animal, then they should fight like a pack.
Once one is weakened, it will try to defend itself, and others will defend it. This way you have to kill them all at once, or too quick for them to defend.

Heavy Hitters should target your strongest characters, as they pose the greatest threat.

Tanks have higher HP and defense, so they target your weakest characters, or whichever character was most recently attacked. They're more tactical. They wouldn't anticipate your next attack, but they would plan their own attacks.

Magician's aren't immune to magic, they just know how to work it. If you cast an elemental spell, then they'll protect themselves. if you try to debuff them, they'll counter debuff. They probably have a system where they can absorb some magic from your attacks, and use it themselves.

Masterminds should be individually tailored. Is the enemy paranoid? Then they might reverse all of your attacks. Is the enemy ruthless? They'll probably ignore your attacks and focus on hurting you as much as possible. Tactical? they'll reverse some of your attacks, but not all. They might even mimic your attacks. If they think you're going to make a big attacks, they'll order a mook to defend them.


Basically, let's imagine these fights actually happening. How do the enemies behave? How do our heroes behave? Do the enemies just relentlessly jump onto our heroes swords, or do they look out for each other?

Wizard Battles are done pretty damn well in films. It's not about hitting your opponent, it's about NOT getting hit BY your opponent. You don't just hit them, you stop them from hitting you. And what does Voldemort do when he sees Dumbledore protecting Harry? He goes after Harry. Because if Harry dies, then Dumbledore loses his will to fight.
Or take the famous Merlin battle where Merlin transforms himself into a germ to kill his opponent (I forget her name, Margeroth or something).
A Wizard battle is about one-upping your opponent.
Outsmarting them.

Of course, there's only so much we can do, but we should at least try to emulate that. Enemies that aren't hard to kill, enemies that are hard to hit.

[bulmabriefs144]

I like this. Have variations, but a heavier degree of strategy.

This is why I can't stop playing FFX, each type has a certain character that can best beat them, and you have to have certain workarounds if you're the wrong character. And boss battles are fun, rather than just being a crazy berserk enemy that heavy hits.

Speaking of fun boss battles, if we could script a counterspell system, something like counters can be cast while a character/enemy is "charging" for an offensive spell. And the magician can do the same. (I have a feeling this would screw with the pacing of the game if done across the board, but it would be great for a boss). Counters fall into three categories: failed (countering thunder with water, fire with ice, higher level with lower level, totally wrong spell, usually something) deal damage to the person trying to counter), dispelling (defensive earth spells to most spells besides water, same spell, holy and dark) either deals no damage to either or minor damage, and successful (basically the same as failed but on the opponent's side) which deals huge damage on the opponent's side.

Ummm... not sure if it should about be trying to guess the spell, or actually having it open and needing to counter it.

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Oct 14 2012, 06:08 PM

[Sparrowsmith]

If we could work in a counter spell system that would be great.
I imagine it would be hard to script, as it would require stopping an attack before it happens.

Maybe most spells activate as normal, but if a mage casts a spell on another mage then there's a chance a side-battle of some kind could occur. Probably something decided by common events and variables.
During this side battle, any of those scenarios you described could occur. The winner will be decided by the choices, the damage will be decided by who is the winner, and what magic attack and magic defense each side has.

So a steam-splosion might damage both sides, but the weaker mage will take a lot more damage.