Came across a design problem

ID:151636
 
Nov 12 2009, 10:53 am
Hi,

Recently I started developing a game, I planned the battle system to work on timers. I'll give a brief example, ignore the variables, they're just for the example. (note: the battle system is not turn based)

Player A uses light kick on Player B

Player B has 1.5 seconds to hit the key that has appeared on-screen to attempt a dodge

Player B presses the button within 0.75 seconds, increasing his chances of dodging by 200%

Player B fails to dodge, due to his stats failing in this specific sequence

Player A now has the chance to combo, meaning his next attack will have a boost to damage but it's less likely to hit


Alright. Basically, projectiles are used too, in the form of blasts and special techniques, the problem is that two players can literally freeze in a melee battle. If someone attacks, the defender is frozen till' the attack is concluded, and this makes it hard for players to manaveur and avoid melee attacks to strike with energy-based ones.

How could I alter the system to make other means of attack more dominant? I can see them being swept away by the ferocity of melee.
Nov 12 2009, 2:31 pm
Lock all normal movement upon entering combat. Instead, players should only move with respect to attacks. If you dodge to the right, that would move your character to the right (turn(get_dir(src, enemy), -90)). Maneuvering would be done in this manner, with the possibility of "attacks" which are primarily for movement (IE: lunging forward to get into melee range, jumping back to get OUT of melee range, left/right to position yourself better). The forward movement command would likely be included in any melee attacks, so that dodging backwards from an attack did not immediately preclude you from retaliating.

You also need to be careful not to have the combat movement result in triggering bad movement-related things. Dodging away from an attack into unlocking your front door is just silly.
Nov 13 2009, 7:19 am
Its also a bit of a risk having such a split second timer system. The timer will be different for each client. depending on their connection, and the AI will slow day if the game starts to. Not to mention the slightest bit of lag will blow your game completely out of the water.
Nov 13 2009, 10:55 am
In response to Rtbbvr
Yup. Remember that if someone's ping is 100, then that means that they will have a 2-tick disadvantage (1 tick to get the message to do something, 1 tick to send the response) on top of everything else. If the window is only 5 ticks, that's almost half their time gone due to network issues.
Nov 13 2009, 11:29 am (Edited on Nov 13 2009, 11:36 am)
In response to Garthor
That's a good idea, but that suggestion doesn't actually fix the problem.

Basically, if someone has poor melee abilities, and they're attacked by someone who has good melee abiltiies, all aspects of their character will be thrown aside. The attacker would be able to keep them frozen, and keep attacking them untill they've lost the battle.

Of course, the non-melee may want to use other attacks, using his rieka (spiritual power) to fire ranged attacks at his opponent. The melee makes this pretty worthless.


I've thought about adding a special trait, and another type of block. The trait would enable people to spend points on a rieka ability that basically enhances the chances of evading, and then moving back to counter with a ranged attack - some sort of enhanced jump. Rieka based players would obviously spend skill points on this to make them more flexible if a melee-based player attacks them.

However, I'm not 100% keen on this, and I'm sure there are better ways to go about it.
Nov 13 2009, 11:31 am
In response to Rtbbvr
Yeah, that came up when forging the battle system. We'll probably adjust the system (i.e: more time to hit a sequence of keys instead of one).