Battle Design Options

[bulmabriefs144]

Okay, so we have a sort of reactive system, where enemies try to guess moves and play strategically (according to their type, more strategically as the game goes on). And we have a counterspell system. And we have an elements system:

Melee
Ranged
(Some things like ghosts are completely immune to both physical, and flying things are probably immune to melee and earth)
Fire
Water
Thunder
Ice
Earth
Air
Light
Dark
(At least)

There should also be all kinds of strategies for bosses, including some puzzle bosses. Ummm let's see... VX has TP, but I think you can turn it off, at least in ACE. Do we want TP system?

[MEands]

I never really understood what TP was.

[bulmabriefs144]

Get an emulator or an SNES cartridge of Lufia 2.

Basically, every time you attack, or are attacked or whatever, you add some TP. It usually maxes out at 100, meaning that's the most an attack can cost. These attacks are physical and usually can't be silenced conventionally, and quite a bit more powerful than MP based attacks, because of the fact that turns (or damage) are built into the cost. Also, there may be a requirement, that you only have the TP tech if you're wearing the right equips. Lufia 2's 100% TP techniques were heal the entire party 50%, a barrier type effect, powerful magic-like attacks, and finally (after you get the epic final item) a tremendous status boost that makes the party able to do huge damage with attacks and magic.

[MEands]

Oh wow, now I finally understand why I couldn't use my attacks in VXA. That could be very cool in a scripted battle, where you have to charge up your TP while staying alive in order to do the final killing blow attack.

[bulmabriefs144]

We could have a few Anti-Monster statuses. Like most things are more or less normal damage when hit by it, but the TP attack has Anti-Dragon, when you are fighting a dragon. There should be some hint in its name without outright saying it.

[Sparrowsmith]

Okay so we're working with TP now as well, great

I'm also thinking we could add very odd elements.
For example: Oil.
Oil and fire would be explosive, so very damaging.
Oil and water would separate, very little damage.
Oil cleans metal, increasing metal damage.
Oil prevents flight in winged creatures.
Oil makes enemies and players harder to hit, but also less likely to hit their target.

So now you're fighting a mage, and he keeps using water attacks, so you pull up a fire shield and he hits you with oil.
Strategy.
But if you put up an oil shield, maybe them mage can't cast fire attacks, so you'll be safe from the water.

So you base your strategy around what attacks your enemy can and can't use, as well as what you can and can't use.

[bulmabriefs144]

Oil would do little/no damage on its own, making it a status and counter effect.

Something like, (for most non-counter battles), if oil status is on enemy, weaken/strengthen this element. For counter battles, if you let it hit you, you take no damage, but if you counter it incorrectly, you're in a world of hurt.

There's no oil shield. Oil is kept back by other elemental shields (like water). Shields can be made only from the four major elements (mainly because the others have aspects that leak onto the user like oil dripping onto its caster).

Probably should have acid too. Acid dissolves in water, heats up and becomes more caustic, can probably be frozen, can probably be scattered by wind, cleans metal, etc.

And maybe sound.

We should also think about various status conditions. The major ones yes, but there's also stuff like being on a lower/higher elevation (the whole balcony thing). Probably should be a few weird ones, like not being able to save until you get it it healed.

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Nov 7 2012, 07:05 AM

[Sparrowsmith]

sound would be interesting if we think of it as vibration. Vibration shakes the ground, creates friction, pushes things around, disturbs water.
It would be a wildcard element depending on how it is used.

You're probably right about the oil shield, but until we start testing the battle system we won't know for sure. I like acid as well.

Height is definitely an issue we'll have to consider. Would water attacks do more damage if you're above the enemy? The water would fall harder, after all. Same goes for earth based attacks.

[MEands]

These are all awesome ideas. If we get the concept of height into the battle then a lot of things will be made simpler.
(Perhaps it would open up a new way through the castle, you can skip half the puzzle by attacking from the balcony, the fight will still be hard but you will be at an advantage)

[Sparrowsmith]

These are all awesome ideas. If we get the concept of height into the battle then a lot of things will be made simpler.
(Perhaps it would open up a new way through the castle, you can skip half the puzzle by attacking from the balcony, the fight will still be hard but you will be at an advantage)

In this case we'll have to make it a challenge to get onto the balcony then

[bulmabriefs144]

Of course. You were planning on making it easy?

[Sparrowsmith]

of course not!

Also, another feature of 'reaction' based battles is the enemy groupings.
We can make two very weak enemies into a POWERFUL team if we group them together. Imagine an enemy dousing your party in oil and then the other sets you alight.
water and lightning.
etc etc

I mean, lets think about stuff that REALLY hurts.
If you're wounded, salt in the wound would be very painful. Followed by water would be even worse.

There's so much we can do with enemy pairings really. Or any pairing.
Once we've decided on a few more elements, we'll make a list of all reactions

[bulmabriefs144]

Sounds good.

We should also (and by we, I mean you, since I can't seem to make VX Ace battles work properly, like I can with 2003) test to see how this battle system works. I've found I can usually come up with more ideas if I can actually see something in action. Make a battle system mockup.

Also, any good MMO has add-ons like pets and mounts. Mounts are simply a graphics and stats change (changing the battle charset and/or class to Rider), pets can simply be an add-on to the animations in battle, or it can be a guest enemy that does special attacks which target the enemy party. The pet causes causes either extra damage, or status effects.

There's more, like costume clothing giving minor alterations to appearance, and some places offer hair dyes. But this is not really battle related.

[Sparrowsmith]

I quite like the idea of pets/mounts.

Perhaps one of the L2 characters has a pet cat they bring with them when they escape, and later asks the programmers to make it battle/capable.
The adorableness might be fatal to members of the audience.

I have yet to get VX Ace, but I'll play around in the demo version when I have free time, and it that goes well I'll get the full version and see what I can cook up.

[bulmabriefs144]

Apparently, I can't even get VX Lite, since I ordered the actual version once, and it's on the timestamp records.

In Atalier Iris, cuteness gives a turn bonus to the party. Though blindness or death might be an option too.
Btw, what type of cat?

Manx? Calico? Persian? Tiger grey? Tiger orange? Egyptian Mau? Alley cat? Tabby?

[Sparrowsmith]

The player can decide, it's rather arbitrary really what kind of cat it is

[bulmabriefs144]

Erm, let's keep these ideas coming.

I don't know what next, and it's been like half a month.

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Nov 30 2012, 08:35 PM

[MEands]

Yeah, it's the middle of the school year and everything's piling up.
I think the main things that need work are:
-Dungeon bookcase puzzle
-Plan for the battle in the main chamber
-Is there a room after the bookcase puzzle?
-Main town design


Those four things are basically all we have before we introduce layer 2 right?

[bulmabriefs144]

- Bookcase puzzle should probably be 3-D. Something like, you start reading and stuff, and something triggers a plot event that lets you notice an upper floor (maybe there's a hanging ladder that you can't quite reach), and involves pulling out loose books from the shelves and stacking them up as stepping stones. You have a series of small puzzles that involve rotating/pushing/knocking over shelves, and some stacking of books. (And maybe a puzzle midway through that reveals a secret room, by organizing a bookcase)
- Pass for now. Mainly strong enemies that can't attack you if you're out of reach (i.e. on the upper level).
- I think we said something about a number/color puzzle involving two or more teams and a couple parallel rooms.
-Ummm, I'll pass there too. You guys probably have a better idea.

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Dec 3 2012, 06:00 AM

[MEands]

- Bookcase puzzle should probably be 3-D. Something like, you start reading and stuff, and something triggers a plot event that lets you notice an upper floor (maybe there's a hanging ladder that you can't quite reach), and involves pulling out loose books from the shelves and stacking them up as stepping stones. You have a series of small puzzles that involve rotating/pushing/knocking over shelves, and some stacking of books. (And maybe a puzzle midway through that reveals a secret room, by organizing a bookcase)
- Pass for now. Mainly strong enemies that can't attack you if you're out of reach (i.e. on the upper level).
- I think we said something about a number/color puzzle involving two or more teams and a couple parallel rooms.
-Ummm, I'll pass there too. You guys probably have a better idea.

Biased opinion: I still kinda like my idea for the bookcase puzzle, mostly because I still dont really understand how this works. I suggest you draw a walkthrough for this puzzle so it's more clear.

Okay now to give normal thoughts on this.

-Dungeon bookcase puzzle: I like what I drew but yknow
-Plan for the battle in the main chamber: I was thinking after a short cutscene, an RPG style battle would commence. The graphic would be of him sitting in a throne room chair, with his right hand on "Pandora's box", which is sitting in his lap. idk if we still want to do him having the power to somewhat control your characters, it would be very interesting if we could implement that. Then, once he's at about 15-30% health a cutscene triggers, (it's risky to trigger an event at shuch low health however, because the player could do a strong attack that could knock him from 16% to 0% causing the event to skip and the battle to end). Once he is at the designated health, a text box appears, "You are stronger than I had anticipated. I never thought I'd have to use this against ordinary humans..." The box on his lap opens, some dark energy flows out, then stops, and the music stops, then comes back on in a stop-freeze manner. The screen moves a little to the right (by this point we will have put a picture across the battle screen and all this will be separate images), then the game crashes to a blue screen that we've edited. (If they happen to be playing in fullscreen it might make them worry a little). Then after .5-3 seconds it turns off and zooms out of a computer screen. You see the guy playing the game (would this be Johnny?) and then Act 1 is over.
-Is there a room after the bookcase puzzle?: I was thinking a short illusion puzzle, since that's sorta what Rasquel's specialty is, right? Right now I'm assuming this game is mainly puzzle based, since there doesn't seem to be much room past layer 1 for stat building.
-Main town design: Middle tower, stores, townsfolk you can talk to for hints and lore. We had a design in one of these threads, we should look back at it and figure out how to paralax map or something. (I don't understand that)

This post has been edited by MEands: Dec 8 2012, 03:12 PM