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Combat
Dec 25, 2003 3:32:40 GMT -5
Post by Beagle on Dec 25, 2003 3:32:40 GMT -5
So the combat system. Right now, it's pretty bare bones. But is that what people want out of a BBG or not. I know some people don't have time to spend 5 minutes engaged in one battle. But maybe some people want it that way. So, what are your thoughts.
Our current formulation of the "new" battle system is pretty much the same as the old one with a few notable changes. First off, the victim can have things protecting him like enchantments or even traps to give the victim better odds against the attacker.
Second, there would be several combat skills that you could spend experience points on to get better at like Block, Flying Kick, Roundhouse Kick, Focus, etc... These skills, depending on your level in them (and maybe your stats) would pretty much randomly give you a boost in combat. So say you have Level 1 Block. That would give you an X% chance of reducing X% damage from each attack. Flying kick would give you an X% chance to double the damage you would do in any given round. And so on and so forth.
Of course, there's always the "battle skills", which are currently characterized by Blaze and Deflect. These are skills you toggle on or off before a battle and they use up turns, where as the skills I talked about above do not use turns, but happen automatically.
Magatsu has talked about adding strategy to combat. I was hoping to add some kind of strategy to quests involving the items you took on the quest and when you used them, but I can see the need for more.
So how can we make combat more interesting?
I was thinking that a successful attack with an item should always initiate combat, so you can't just pummel an unwitting opponent with shuriken until the cows come home. This doesn't really make combat more interesting though...
What if, going into combat meant heavy fighting for X rounds, and then a break where you can choose to take 1 action, whether it's using an item, casting a spell, or whatever. This would happen every X rounds until one ninja emerged victorious. The only problem I see with this idea is that the victim is passive in this case and would be at a serious disadvantage. Should the combat system automate how the victim reacts during the combat breaks? Should we look into (ugh I'm digging the team into a hole here) letting players set AI priorities for their ninja while off-line?
Should we attempt to make combat interactive if the victim happens to be online at the time?
I'm really not sure what would be fair, or doable by the team in the relatively short amount of time we have, but we haven't really heard any solid ideas from you guys about how you want the combat system changed. And if you're going to talk clan combat, let's start a new thread for clans in general.
--Woof
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Combat
Dec 25, 2003 22:43:37 GMT -5
Post by Magatsu on Dec 25, 2003 22:43:37 GMT -5
Seriously speaking, I wouldn't want to waste time on battle systems if I'm fighting against AI or MIAed players.
Unless it's a real online war, battles can be made as simple, as quick, and as easy as it can be.
Or we'll be bored death by it.
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Combat
Dec 25, 2003 22:49:23 GMT -5
Post by Beagle on Dec 25, 2003 22:49:23 GMT -5
Ok, good to know. We'll stick with simple combat for now then, and try to focus on some kind of skill advancement and character modifications.
Though, it would be sweet if we could develop a "real-time battle module" that would allow online players to have some fun with each other. But that's neither here nor there.
We'll stick with a simple combat system and focus on developing other areas of NinjaWars.
--Woof
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Combat
Dec 28, 2003 23:50:59 GMT -5
Post by Beagle on Dec 28, 2003 23:50:59 GMT -5
After some discussion with Magatsu, I have felt challenged to keep this game unique and do more interesting things with it than normal RPGs. As such, I've spent some time thinking about ways to improve the game play and since most of the game play is currently combat centered, I have tried to develop a new combat system. Here is the first draft, let me know what you think.
Open, overt attacks: This is combat much like the combat system is now. Open air, in the middle of the village bloodshed between two ninjas. This type of combat will be most common in the village with new players being the most prominent victims. In the more populated towns, this type of attack will be harder due to guard presence with guilds, and the doshin.
Duels: Duels will be mutually agreed to public battles. What this means is that you must challenge someone to a duel and await their acceptance. If they accept, then the duel commences. If you die before the acceptance, the challenge is dropped. They can accept the duel when you are offline, so this option may need some tweaking to make it successful.
Assassinations: This will be the most common task of experienced players. It rolls many aspects of gameplay into one. First, you assassinate someone you cannot easily attack openly. This most likely means that they are in a guild, protected by their guild house and guards. So, you must have a stealth skill, and make stealth checks as you approach your victim. If you are spotted, then you must fight a series of guards, before you move on. The number of stealth check points will be determined by the effects of the guild house. If the guild house has a gate, or guard towers, or good defensive structures, all of these things add stealth check points during an assassination attempt. The level of stealth required depends on how many guards are at the guild house. The difficulty of the battles you face if you fail a stealth check depends on the types of guards present and how many there are. Once you get past the guards, you will have to makea choice. You can use ranged weapons to try to kill your victim, but if you miss, or don't kill them instantly, they will spot you and engage you in combat. If you kill them, assassination attempt over! You can also try to get into the guild house and kill them with a blade in the back or throat, but that will require disguises, and good stealth and disguise skills, and maybe high charisma. Wether you go ranged or not, if you have are successful, you will be spotted and identified unless you are disguised. If you are identified, you will get a bounty on your head. If not, then your victim will know what guild you're from.
This is basically what I've come up with for the new combat system. I'm working on assassination quests and such, but my thinking is that this is a pretty solid combat system with many elements that make it unique and interesting, and it keeps true to the ninja theme of the game.
Please comment on this. This is an important aspect of the game and I want to make sure we do it right.
--Woof
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Combat
Jan 13, 2004 12:26:26 GMT -5
Post by Tchalvak on Jan 13, 2004 12:26:26 GMT -5
Dueling: Assuming that the initiator can drop their challenge at any time, Dueling is sweet, the "real-time" aspect of combat.
I think that it should work that each person must prepare their list of the (five) skills that they'll use prior to either challenging someone or accepting a challenge, and then (five) rounds of combat go off using those skills, and another (three) rounds of combat go off without any skills being used, and then if they're both still alive, they'd have to duel again to. Point is that the better strategy/preparation wins. (Any number in parentheses could be changed to some other number, the numbers don't matter, it's the concept)
Assassination: I'm thinking that for clan based war, we need the following skills: stealth skill (whether this is disguise based or sneaking) Trap/lock breaking (and a better name for it) Escape skill Combat skills (i.e. all of a character's normal stuff that they need anyway in normal combat, like strength and hitpoints, etc)
And then hypothetically a ninja can infiltrate a stronghold without ever having to rely upon their combat strength. (Using stealth and Trap breaking)
Unless they get caught, in which case they can try to escape without getting caught up in combat. If they can't escape, then they have to start fighting through the clans guards.
Then if someone can get through all the clanguards, they can get to unprepared ninja and attack them at a disadvantage (without their weapons available or something like that?) or try to sneak past the next ring of guards that are guarding the clan bank.
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Combat
Feb 22, 2004 8:00:48 GMT -5
Post by karimicus on Feb 22, 2004 8:00:48 GMT -5
Hrrmm there use to be a free online combat game which allowed real time combat, cann't rember the name of it now but what about something like that?
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Combat
Feb 22, 2004 10:37:09 GMT -5
Post by Beagle on Feb 22, 2004 10:37:09 GMT -5
Right now, we are running off very cheap hosts because NinjaWars provides no income for us. With cheap hosts come small bandwidths, and that means we can't be sending lots of data all the time. If NinjaWars 2 brings in a bunch of players and we start making some money off of ads and optional paid memberships, then we will talk about a real-time combat feature after we upgrade our hosts.
That's not to say we won't be improving on the combat system at all. We certainly have some great ideas for the new combat system, but real-time is beyond our bandwidth capacity at the moment.
--Woof
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Combat
Apr 24, 2004 17:24:32 GMT -5
Post by Will on Apr 24, 2004 17:24:32 GMT -5
I think that the cost to initaite combat should be one and the skills that you have/earn/buy should use turns that cost a differnet amout of turns for each differnet skill and very depending on what level it is and your stats. (ex. the flying kick lv. 3 would cost like 7 turns if your body skill "stat" is equal to 3 and cost less as the body skill "stat" increaces. like if body skill lv.7 then flying kick would cost something like 3 turns.)
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Combat
Apr 24, 2004 22:30:36 GMT -5
Post by Beagle on Apr 24, 2004 22:30:36 GMT -5
Hey Will, good to see more people being active on the boards. Why don't you become a member on the boards? It's free and while it asks for personal information, you can always lie Anyway, about your suggestion. There's a delicate balance between rewarding players for advancement and challenging players as they advance. Things need to get harder as you level, not easier. Reducing turn cost might be one of our tools for final balancing of skills and such, but in general we feel that as you level, you should be challenged with harder gameplay, but rewarded with more options and more power. But I do like the idea of certain stats reducing the cost of certain skills. We'll see how much of that we can fit into the new design. Keep the ideas coming and thanks for playing NinjaWars! --Woof
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Combat
Sept 27, 2004 14:38:44 GMT -5
Post by Blade Master on Sept 27, 2004 14:38:44 GMT -5
I know that most of the people like combat how it is but maybe you can make the battles kinda like my little RPG except alot better and do not take anything else cause the rest is crap, crap, and more crap lol. Heres the link to my rpg: ninjavsamurai.proboards25.com/index.cgiand heres so you you can see what I mean Username:Freeusertest Password:Freeusertest then there should be a link that shows dice and says rpg click on it. Edit your profile by writing in the entries in "Jobs,Blacksmith, and the rest of the Profile". Then there should be a link that says training center. Then choose the first rank and you should see what I mean.
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Combat
Dec 10, 2004 4:50:16 GMT -5
Post by Tchalvak on Dec 10, 2004 4:50:16 GMT -5
Uh, kinda a pain in the ass to have to go through with all of that, if you want to explain something, perhaps you could post it here instead, so that we can just read it and not waste our time looking for whatever it is.
*shrugs*
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Combat
Mar 13, 2005 9:35:23 GMT -5
Post by JOe on Mar 13, 2005 9:35:23 GMT -5
the assasination thing is cool maybe if you get killed by guards then you are imprisoned and can be ransomed to your guild (if any) but you have an (escape skill) to escape from prison. if your guild doesn't do the ransom (lol) then you are let out in say 10 minutesjust log off eat a sandwich and log back on and your out. but you have an (escape skill) to escape from prison and leave the guild. then your guild can keep its money.this may be useful if you have a poor guild (or if the ransom is a ridiculus amount)
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Combat
Jul 13, 2005 16:05:00 GMT -5
Post by murmkuma on Jul 13, 2005 16:05:00 GMT -5
i like the ransome idea, capture a guild leader ....very interesting. I wouldnt mind some sort of a real time battle system, perhaps an arena or something like it, where online players could meet and partake in battle. as for offline, i think preset attacks is a good plan, will protect you against certain ninja, leaves you open to others, also if it is possible i would love to see a lil gif of ninja battlin it out durring the battle.
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Combat
Jul 13, 2005 19:43:12 GMT -5
Post by Beagle on Jul 13, 2005 19:43:12 GMT -5
The real time system is a grand experiment that we'd like to try out in the future. We've discussed both a Java Applet MUD client and we're playing with AJAX for NW2 and might be able to figure out something for real-time combat using that, but it's definitely something for the future.
I'll look into the kidnapping, ransom, and jail time ideas. There might be some cool things we can do. Better than death!
As for animation for the combat, we'll see. It's definitely a cute idea.
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Combat
Jul 7, 2006 3:56:08 GMT -5
Post by Angry Panda on Jul 7, 2006 3:56:08 GMT -5
Hey, I was just thinking, how much more complex would you have to make the game to make team battles, as in multiple people within the same battle?
This brings me to my second idea, could an other character class/skill be healer, so you could heal yourself or teammates in-battle? though this would require real time battles...
What about, giving the ability to set a battle plan? Like a timeline of what your character would do, Eg. Round1)Attack, 2)block, 3)heal self etc. The idea isn't perfect...but you sould work on it.
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Combat
Jul 7, 2006 19:18:52 GMT -5
Post by Beagle on Jul 7, 2006 19:18:52 GMT -5
Ahh. Yes. Team combat has been considered. The system is being developed to be open enough to allow that. You may see it some time after the initial release of NW2. The current ideas for the system are that you'd agree to be in a party with someone, and there'd be one person in charge of running the team for that one combat. Each person would have their combos set up and the leader can make some choices for everyone in the team.
But that's a talk for another day. We like the idea, we've considered it, but it won't make it in for the first release.
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Combat
Jul 7, 2006 20:07:08 GMT -5
Post by Tchalvak on Jul 7, 2006 20:07:08 GMT -5
Don't forget that team -defense- is also something that we came up with, in the form of clanmembers lending their power to defend their clanhall, so that's another group interaction.
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Combat
Jul 9, 2006 3:01:56 GMT -5
Post by Angry Panda on Jul 9, 2006 3:01:56 GMT -5
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Combat
Aug 1, 2006 13:48:46 GMT -5
Post by kenpachi on Aug 1, 2006 13:48:46 GMT -5
i have a concern about assassinations. if at higher levels most of the combat will take place by infiltrating guilds or clans it will heavily favor those who choose archetypes such as spy or assassin. would it be possible for fighters to learn skills to allow them to disguise themselves? Could enough fighters decide to take over a guild by simply killing all guards and people inside? Would there be ways for the classes to work together to infiltrate and sabotage the traps and let others in?
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Combat
Aug 1, 2006 20:42:09 GMT -5
Post by Beagle on Aug 1, 2006 20:42:09 GMT -5
It's not the case the higher level play will consist of assassination and infiltration mostly. Combat will still be big at high levels, and assassination and espionage will still be useful at low levels. No need to worry about that at all.
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Combat
Aug 3, 2006 22:44:44 GMT -5
Post by firesword on Aug 3, 2006 22:44:44 GMT -5
The only thing I have to say about the combat is that I would really prefer not to take 5 minutes to complete one battle. I'm pressed for time right now, and as I get into higher grades I'm going to have less and less time. Other than that I'm just going to sit back and make minor comments now and then about the development as I still have to catch up on everything being said. It seems to have really progressed since I was last on!
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Combat
Aug 3, 2006 23:04:05 GMT -5
Post by Beagle on Aug 3, 2006 23:04:05 GMT -5
Yeah, we recognize the time constraints. Our mission is to make a game that only takes 15 minutes a day, but can also be played for 45 minutes a day. We plan on doing this by providing different actions for each archetype. For example, the combat system will have skill combos. They can be different lengths. If you want to micromanage your combat, you create combos with the shortest length. If you want to get through combat quickly, you create longer combos. Short combos gives you the benefit of better response time to changes. Longer combos gives you the benefit of a slight proficiency bonus based on the length. So each play style is equally viable, not one is better than the other, but one takes very little time to play and one takes longer.
Same thing for the other archetypes as well, ask about them on different threads if you're interested.
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Combat
Aug 19, 2006 20:01:09 GMT -5
Post by kenpachi on Aug 19, 2006 20:01:09 GMT -5
Would their be multiple styles of combat worked it. It could be as simple as "style a has a slight advantage over style b, style b has a slight advantage over style c, style c has a slight advantage over style a". Advantages could include better/reduced accuracy or better/reduced damage. Would a attack with a water attribute do extra damage if the person had a fire proficiency and so on?
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Combat
Aug 20, 2006 5:48:28 GMT -5
Post by Beagle on Aug 20, 2006 5:48:28 GMT -5
Yes, their will be an elemental zero-sum relationship among the elements.
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