The thing about battle systems (and other very complex game compnents) is that they don't port easily between projects. Except for very trivial ones, they have to be created customly. Others could give you the code they use, but it would be of absolutely no use to you... you can't just copy and paste it.

And thats exactly why no one is jumping on the opportunity to help you. A good battle system takes a lot of work, and no ones going to do that for someone they don't know.

-AbyssDragon

Oh, so you want that huh? Well; I doubt anyone here is going to do anything as complex as a battle system, for someone they dont know. Unless you by chance are paying. So cough up the dough, and the details and I'll get right to it.

Im wondering exactly how you figure that you can just come to a forum, demand to see code, and not even specify what you want? The forum is for getting help with a code problem, not for getting chunks of code handed out to you at your every demand.

Try coding one yourself-even if by some miracle you found someone who would make one for you, I doubt that you'd understand how to fit it into your game without any problems. I've coded my battle system four seperate times, and it's probably taught me more about coding through trial and error than anything else that I've done. Just set small goals for yourself-if you are making a console style battle system (which I assume you are) then start out with learning how to do random encounters, then move on to teleportation, then to giving each person in the battle a turn and from there go on to your damage formulas etc. It's a long process, but you'll be glad in the end that you did it yourself, and you'll be a better coder for it.

ACWraith wrote:

Step 1: Ignore the rude comments here.
Step 2: Post in Classified Ads - Remember to offer dimes.
Step 3: Pat yourself on the back for being articulate enough to define the project more than most have bothered.

Hrm... instructing Watabou to ignore all these comments isn't such a good idea. I didn't actually see much in the way of rudeness anyway, just a few posts that were more irate than others--but with valid reason, considering this is the 2nd time he's posted this same "request".

Several of the replies, mine included, have pointed out a fundamental truth that Watabou needs to grasp--and when he does, he'll save himself the time of making an equally useless post in Classifieds. (In fact, his request is even better suited to Newbie Central.) A battle system will ultimately have to be custom-fit to his game, so it's something no one can code for him no matter how articulate he gets. Such a piece of code is so intricate and complex that it stands near the heart of the game, and would be all but impossible to graft in--except for a coder experienced enough to write it himself in the first place.

The absolute best advice to Watabou would be to study existing battle demos for how they handle it, then to use those as a guide when coding his own. A demo is his best bet.

As for item #3, Watabou was only slightly more articulate or specific in this post than the last, though I did appreciate the detail of the list. Yet you check the list carefully, especially near the end, many of the items in it are vague enough to fall under the "What exactly do you mean by that?" or "Wouldn't that depend on how the game is set up?" categories. And that just gets back to my earlier point, that the battle system is going to have to be tailored to his game.

Lummox JR

I didn't say to ignore all comments or even all of a post which happened to contain a rude comment. Just rude comments. :)

My point was, all that was needed was a "wrong forum" post. He asked for something. Classified Ads. Done. (I say as I add yet one more, probably unneeded, post...)

I wrote Watabou off as clueless newbie posting again too until I actually read the old thread.* Watabou asked for comments on battle systems before and was polite about it. (He made a joke about being rude, but wasn't.) His reward for being polite was a bunch of people talking about how upset they were over losing FIREking's old libraries. No help. Being irate over him posting again is not valid.

In his second attempt, it appears he asked for someone else to do the code. He could have bothered to be more clear about actually making the request. ("I want" a pony. Babble. Done. ;) ) Slight improvement or not, it was better than most battle system requests.

I don't really think poorly of anyone who was irritated. :) I just think that this was one occasion where people jumped to the wrong conclusion.


*Alright, so my instinct was to defend the underdog. Then I saw that he had posted again. Then I read and found out my instincts were correct. :)

Okay, I need to do a second reply here because I didn't address the rest of your point, on which, it turns out, you were mistaken. I took another look at Watabou's first post, thinking I'd misread it and and misjudged it. Nope, I was right.

I wrote Watabou off as clueless newbie posting again too until I actually read the old thread.* Watabou asked for comments on battle systems before and was polite about it. (He made a joke about being rude, but wasn't.) His reward for being polite was a bunch of people talking about how upset they were over losing FIREking's old libraries. No help. Being irate over him posting again is not valid.

[snip]

*Alright, so my instinct was to defend the underdog. Then I saw that he had posted again. Then I read and found out my instincts were correct. :)

Actually you were completely wrong on that. Read the first post again:

I DONT CARE IF ITS TURN BASED OR REAL TIME! ALL I WANT IS A GOOD BATTLE SYSTEM!!!!!!!!!Hehe.. I lost it there..Anyways I want a good, easy battle system that supports Magic,HP,MP,Weapons,Armor,Shield,Helmet,Boots, Medical Items,Gold,Experience,Levels,Other Items and stuff like that. and I also want the bad guys to slowly move and not be able to teleport to different maps! I need LOTS OF COMMENTS! Thank You!

He's asking for a battle system, not for people's comments on battle systems so he can write his own from there. He didn't say "LOTS OF COMMENTS" until later, by which it's obvious he wasn't asking for people to weigh in on various ways to do it, but to give him code and comment it liberally. He meant, clearly, comments within the code. If he was looking for people to offer their thoughts on various approaches, he would have phrased it much, much differently.

Lummox JR

ACWraith wrote:

Whether or not he asked for a battle system, my point was a second posting was not unwarranted. (Especially if I'm not even sure I spelled unwarranted correctly. :) ) Some people might have counted Watabou's first post against him, which is why I mentioned that thread.

The second post was tantamount to bumping the first, really; he was asking the impossible, and he was told about as much the first time around. He was clearer this time, though.

As for battle systems in Classified Ads, there is already precedent (id:63623). I think some amount of customization is required for most jobs, whether it is for making icons or code.

Precedent, yes, but not good precedent. That someone wants a battle system doesn't mean they're going to get one, and a post by someone else asking the same thing is kind of pointless because it just can't be done. "Some customization" is drastically underestimating, I think, the amount of adjustment that would need to be made to adapt a battle system from one game (or generic code) to another.

I've said--more than once, I think--that battle systems need to be tailored to their game. That's a deliberate choice of words, but in most respects even that falls short of decribing the intricacy involved. I also said the battle system is close to the heart of a game, and that's true too: Think of this like an organ transplant. It's a complicated procedure and the organ might not even be a match; Watabou would ultimately be the "surgeon" in charge of splicing it in.

Now, with a full set of information to work with, I could see one experienced coder being able to put together a battle system for another experienced coder. The more details provided to the battle system programmer, and the more scrupulously those guidelines are adhered to, the less work will be needed to adapt it--yet it will still take skill on both programmers' parts.

Lummox JR