Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 SilentSin Jul 06, 2009 6:19:44	I'm a uni student studying Games Programming and I've been designing a game for a couple of years. A lot of my inspiration has come from D&D, directly and indirectly. So i thought i would make a thread where people can post and discuss ideas for my game, and also so i can get feedback for my ideas. The game is basically a real time, top down view version of D&D (with a completely different system and mechanics). My current problem is how to handle Damage and Armour: Each weapon has it's own Attack Speed (between 40/minute and 150/minute) and Damage (between 10 and 150). I don't want to include accuracy in the game (except for ranged) simply because it is real time and you click to attack (ie swing your sword), unlike games like Warcraft III where you click on something and your character attacks that. The Damage/Defence systems i have tried so far: 1. Attack - Defence = Damage: With variable attack speed, the effectiveness of defence is impossible to calculate (to balance the weapons). 2. Attack - Defence = Damage, however Defence is a pool of points that works like HP, recovering fully every second: the problem with this is weapons that attack slower than once every second: eg. Greataxe (100 Damage, 40 Attacks per Minute = 4000 Damage per Minute) Dagger (40 Damage, 120 Attacks per Minute = 4800 Damage per Minute) Against 0 Defence, the Dagger wins However against say 30 Defence: The Greataxe Attacks once for 100 - 30 Damage (70) then attacks again for another 70 damage because the enemy's defence has fully recovered. So it deals 70 damage, 40 times in a minute = 2800 The Dagger Attacks twice in a second, dealing 40 - 30 (10) the first time, half a second later the enemy has already recovered half of their defence and the next attack does 40 - 15 (25) and continues to do so for a whole minute (10 + 25 x 119) = 2985 given that against no defence, the dagger did 800 more damage per minute and against 30 it went down to 200 above the Greataxe, this would be incredibly hard to balance. Although it may seem logical that a Dagger loses against a Greataxe when fighting an armoured opponent, what happens when instead of a dagger, you use a spell that makes multiple attacks (like 3.5 Magic Missile). You would get a balanced amount of damage for the person attacking quickly, but someone who attacks less than once per second (like a spellcaster charging a spell) would get a sort of armour piercing effect (only 1 second worth of the target's defence is applied to their attack and the rest of the time their defence is doing nothing). The solution to this could be just to make defence recharge over a longer period of time, say 3 seconds. However then the person with the dagger does nothing for about a second, even though they are hitting their opponent. This also creates a problem with people who optimize their characters (like me), if you put everything into defence and the enemy wizard puts some points into damage and some into invisibility and other spells, yes they are invisible but they are doing 0 damage to you. 3. Attack / Defence = Damage: The immediate advantage is that it completely overcomes the problems with attack speed. I cant see any real disadvantages with this system yet. Since I am a programmer, i am not very good at coming up with stories/settings/character backgrounds etc so ideas on those are also welcome. I look forward to everyone's ideas and (constructive) criticism. Note: since this is the D&D forums, i realize that a thread about another game (even one closely related) may be forbidden, in which case i apologize for breaking the rules and you may remove this thread.
#2 Escef Jul 06, 2009 7:10:34	The game is basically a real time, top down view version of D&D (with a completely different system and mechanics). In other words, it's not D&D at all. A fantasy fiction themed real time game. You could simply use accuracy as a multiplier to damage. For example, Damage = (attack - defense) * accuracy. So, if someone with attack 12 and accuracy 50% has at it with a defense 6, the result is 3 damage. Or even go so far as Damage = (attack - defense) * (accuracy - dodge).
#3 SilentSin Jul 06, 2009 9:39:04	Not that i look at it, that statement actually contradicts itself. You're right my game isn't really anything like D&D (anymore, it was much more similar in the earlier stages of development) I'm glad you were able to figure out what i wanted from my overlong post (basically just an idea). However i don't think the idea of accuracy (for melee) suits this type of game very well. In D&D, accuracy (Attack) works because you assume that the player is constantly moving, dodging, blocking and feinting while the player just says: I Shift 1 space to the right. However in my game (being real time and giving the player a greater deal of control over their character), if the player wants to dodge, they have to actually move out of the way of an attack, if they want to block, they have to actually hold block (as their character holds up their weapon and tries to block things). It just doesn't seem to make sense that you could press attack, see your character swing his sword through an enemy and deal no damage. The other part of your idea (using accuracy as a second version of damage and dodge as a second version of defence) is very interesting and wouldn't do too badly in D&D, however as i said above, the concept of accuracy doesn't really fit my game (because it relies on showing the player what is actually happening, the dragon's breath is coming towards you, you can block it but you are still going to get hurt, unlike D&D where you could take less damage if you have quick enough reflexes). Also as i mentioned in my first post, having a subtraction in the formula will penalise people with high attack speed, making it much harder to balance. Don't think that this means I dislike complicated formulas, at one point while designing this game i was going to use Logarithms in my damage calculation. I didn't include that particular formula in my first post because I decided that there was such a thing as "too complex" (that, and it would have taken up about 3 lines). Thanks for the idea though, ill keep it in mind when i'm working on one of my turn based games (that is actually like D&D). I also forgot to mention that as well as this formula, i need a way for blocking to affect it (does each weapon have a percentage chance that you can block an attack and receive no damage or does it just increase your defence, or anything else you can think of).
#4 Dreamstryder Aug 31, 2009 1:54:21	If you click to attack, is the weapon speed the time gap between clicking and throwing the blow? For the first option you list, why not a point system to balance speed, damage, and defence? All weapon stats add up to x balance points: 1 pt of speed =1 balance pt, 1 pt of damage =y balance pts. If defense is a property of a weapon too, then 1 pt of defense = z balance pts. Just take an average weapon or two in game as the model. The highest defense should not be as high as the lowest damage so things take damage when hit, unless you want people to deal 0 damage sometimes. With this in mind, Y in the example above should less than half of Z so that more attack is assigned, being cheaper. Without knowing what scale damage and defense take in your game, I can't be more specific.
#5 SilentSin Aug 31, 2009 3:52:07	A weapon's Attack Speed is measured as the number of Attacks it can make in a minute. The major difference between my game and others is that you have much more control over your character (specifically their weapon). You look at your character from behind (like in Dynasty Warriors), use WASD to move around and use the mouse (i'm currently designing it for PC but it could also be good on Wii or something similar) to control your weapon. To make an Attack, you would bring the mouse to the right then hold left click and move it left. The damage you deal with your attack and the time it takes is affected by your weapon's base stats as well as: The distance you move your mouse / the size of the angle through which your weapon moves. How smoothly you move your mouse. The angle of your previous swing (assuming it was part of the same combo) The direction of the swing (going from above your head down to the side will deal more damage than the other way around). How long it has been since your last attack and what movements you have made with your weapon during that time (you have to join your strikes with other movements, you can't just keep slashing left-right-left-right without any time inbetween). So i guess attack speed represents the rate at which your weapon can change speed and it's top speed (how fast you can get it moving during an attack).   For now, i've made stats for my weapons using the second option in the list. All weapons and shields have Damage and Attack Speed and everything (weapons, shields and armour) has Defence. Defence is expressed in the form X + Y. In D&D terms X would be the maximum ammount of temporary HP granted while blocking with that item and Y would be the ammount of that temporary HP that you recover per second. BTW you are always automatically blocking with your armour so it's defence gets applied even if you aren't holding right click (Block). A Katar has Attack: 40, Speed: 120/m (80 DPS) and Defence 20 + 50 A Long Sword has Attack: 50, Speed: 60/m (50 DPS) and Defence 60 + 50 Full Plate Armour has Defence 90 + 50 So Katar vs. Full Plate During the 1st second of attacking, 80 Damage will reduce the Defence from 90 to 10 but it will also recover by 50 to 60. During the 2nd second of attacking, 80 Damage will reduce the Defence from 60 to -20 but it will also recover by 50 to 30 (both will happen at the same time so the defender still hasn't taken damage). During the 3rd second of attacking, 80 Damage will reduce the Defence from 30 to -50 but it will also recover by 50 to 0. Every second after that, 80 Damage will be dealt and 50 Defence will be recovered so the defender will take 30 Damage per second. Assuming around 100 HP means it takes just over 6 seconds of continuous attacking for a Katar to kill someone wearing Plate Armour (but not blocking). And Katar vs. Full Plate + Blocking with a Longsword Each second, if the Katar does 80 Damage, the Full Plate recovers 50 and the Long Sword also recovers 50 so the defender will never take damage. Since it is harder to defend against two people at once, if two Katar wielders were attacking at the same time, the defender would only be able to completely nullify one of them (while blocking) and would start taking damage from the other after a few seconds. Although it seems unwise to allow someone to completely nullify someone else's attacks like that without even using a special combination of skills and magic items, you have to remember that there will be skills and magic items and (like every other game i know of) most of the skills will be focussed on offense rather than defence.