Re: [Adonthell-general] Combat

[Kai Sterker]

On Mon, 15 Apr 2002 17:18:47 +0200 address@hidden wrote:

> My suggestion is the following: I think we should have real time
> combat on the map (a different combat screen does not make for
> consistant gameplay, and it would mean double the graphics(and well,
> we could always add that later on)).

Yep. Combat should definitely take place on the map. That way it will
integrate much better, just like you said.

However, I don't really agree with the pure "in game approach" you
suggest. I think there must still be ways to calculate how much damage a
spell or hit does. This involves natural resistances as well as armour
and other means of protection. After all, if a certain spell or weapon
or attack always causes the same damage it would be rather boring.

That does not mean that players need to see or influence those
underlying stats. Well, they could 'influence' them by chosing a certain
character and appropriate weapon and armour. But they never get to see
the actual numbers. After all, it should be obvious that better armour
provides better protection. And figuring out the strengths and
weaknesses of different opponents is just a matter of experience.
Reading some rulebook to learn how to best beat monster x would be sorta
cheap, so keeping the actual rules we use away from people shouldn't
hurt.

I don't mind if it is the player that decides when and whom to attack
(in contrast to battle systems where you just chose the opponent and
lean back and watch). Actually, I would prefer this as it involves you
more with the game. There is a difference between saying 'I've beaten
that guy' and 'my character has beaten that guy'. 

I just don't want to be completely on my own. I want to be able to boost
my chances of winning by supplying my character with better equipment
and by raising his abilities and skills and not by training my own
reflexes. I want to win because I wisely used my character's qualities
to my favour, not because I pushed the attack button faster than anybody
else.

Of course, a good deal of activity remains with the player. But the
player would only initiate individual actions. The outcome would be
determined by the rules system. After all, isn't that what role playing
is all about? If I take over the role of a warrior or mage, I want to
gain their abilities, not the other way round. That means of course that
their skills and abilities should determine what happens, not mine.


To cut a long story short, here is what I would suggest:

We would use the stats like strength or dexterity, but only behind the
scenes. For example, each race starts with a certain value. All the
player needs to know is that Dwarfs are rather strong and resistant to
magic but quite slow. The other races would get similar descriptions,
allowing the player to estimate what their character can do or cannot
do.

Then, the skills and abilities the player picks improve or weaken
certain stats while level ups generally improve them. So in the end, an
elvish fighter may become stronger than a dwarvish scholar, even though
the base strength of the dwarf is higher. Along the same line, a Dwarf
with a high rank in body control might be faster and have a higher
dexterity than a low ranked Half-Elf.

Certain items can further influence those stats. Again, all the rulebook
needs to mention is that for example heavy armour slows characters down.
What stats that involves is an implementation detail and nothing a
player needs to know.


The main question is how life-like our combat system should get. On the
one end there is something like Zelda where you have your 3 hearts and
each time you're hit you lose one of them. On the other end, there would
be a system where even the (virtual) temperature would have an effect on
your character ;). Obviously, latter is out of question for us, and I
hope my previous writing made it clear that I'm not in favour of the
first alternative. So yes, I would go for something in between.

I'm not sure if the battle system I am suggesting is self-explanatory,
but with a bit of common sense people should be able to understand why
things are the way they are. That means, the battle system needs to
depend on factors that are accessible to player. Those would be (as
explained above) their character's race, abilities, skills and
equipment.


To tell the truth, I think my suggestion isn't so much different from
yours. All it does is adding an additonal layer to ease implementation.
In short, all those skills and items are turned into a bunch of numbers
that allow for 'simple', generic combat calculations.


> Well, let me know if you thinl that I should start making up feats
> and  special abilities (runes, alchemy, songs and spells) according to
> this "in game approach". I would love to give it a try.

Feel free. As I said, I don't think this conflicts with my suggestions,
so we could use it no matter how we'll decide in the end. (Unless we
decide for something completely different, of course.)

 
> I imagine combat with 4 buttons since the SNES controller had 4
> buttons (not including start, select or the l and r button). On the
> keyboard these could be ctrl, alt, space and enter by default (and
> then be reconfigured as the player likes it). One button would be for
> jumping, one the use button (also primary attack), while the other two
> buttons could be defined by the character's abilities. You could for
> example put a spell or a special attack gained by a fighting feat or
> something else on one of these.

Yeah. That's similar to what James suggested once. He wrote a detailed
mail about the game controls once:
http://mail.freesoftware.fsf.org/pipermail/adonthell-devel/2002-February/000438.html
 
 
> Another thing we need to decide on is the inventory. I mention this
> here, because I think the inventory is closely linked to combat. I
> would prefer a paper doll system (like in Diablo or Baldur's Gate), to
> represent which equipment is equiped (the rest will be kept in the
> player 's backpack). 

Yes, I would like those paper dolls. Although I personally do not like
the way the 'backpack' is represented in Diablo. To tell the truth, the
system of Baldur's Gate is awkward as well ;). I was more thinking about
a pooled inventory, where each character has access to every item (as
long as the characters are able to reach each other on the map).
Everything else involves too much micro management, I think. I wanna go
adventuring, not spend endless amounts of time with filing my inventory.

Kai