[project1dev] Re: combat musings - injuries, status, partylist, matchups and tagteaming

  • From: Matthew Morgan <MMorgan@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "project1dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <project1dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2009 12:15:10 -0700

L4D is the business. Too bad my dog thought it was a Frisbee.


From: project1dev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:project1dev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Kent Petersen
Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2009 12:01 PM
To: project1dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [project1dev] Re: combat musings - injuries, status, partylist, 
matchups and tagteaming

I have not but I really want to. I have heard so many great things about that 
game. Sadly, lately, I don't have much time to play games
On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 11:58 AM, Matthew Morgan 
<MMorgan@xxxxxxxxxx<mailto:MMorgan@xxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

I like it.





From: project1dev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:project1dev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
[mailto:project1dev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:project1dev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]
 On Behalf Of figarus@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:figarus@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2009 11:35 AM

To: project1dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:project1dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [project1dev] Re: combat musings - injuries, status, partylist, 
matchups and tagteaming



Yes that is correct... I imagine a lot of heroic efforts to get to the next 
checkpoint with your beat up crew... It'll be tense and thrilling

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________________________________

From: Alan Wolfe
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2009 11:29:34 -0700
To: <project1dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:project1dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
Subject: [project1dev] Re: combat musings - injuries, status, partylist, 
matchups and tagteaming

oh good point about #1 so maybe when you get your guys that are F'ed up and 
have only 20% of their max health so you can keep going but you are kinda 
wrecked.

On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 11:25 AM, Kent Petersen 
<kentkmp@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:kentkmp@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

for #1, I see Eric's idea of lowered max life being implemented. The lowered 
max life would be all they get until they receive proper healing.

#2 sounds good



On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 11:22 AM, Alan Wolfe 
<alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

if that does make sense maybe we should tweak it so that...



#1 - when a person in your party dies they disapear.  Whenever you come to a 
spirit node, it will contain all your fallen team members, you can "pick them 
up" but maybe they are still injured.



#2 - when everyone dies, it loads your last save game - and whenever you are 
near a spirit node, it auto saves

hows that?

On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 11:19 AM, Alan Wolfe 
<alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

oh i see...



Eric will correct me if i'm wrong but as i see it...



#1 - when a person in your party dies, they teleport back to the last spirit 
node.  You have to go back to pick them up if you want them again



#2 - when everyone dies, it loads your last save game - and whenever you are 
near a spirit node, it auto saves



so spirit nodes are kind of like checkpoints



does that make sense? (im not sure if it does haha)

On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 11:17 AM, Kent Petersen 
<kentkmp@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:kentkmp@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

I thought we were looking for a different death system to avoid monotony and 
repetition. Since we are settling on the classic start over system, how will we 
avoid monotony and repetition?



On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 11:13 AM, Alan Wolfe 
<alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

what do you mean kent?



On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 10:56 AM, Kent Petersen 
<kentkmp@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:kentkmp@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

Will prevention for repetition (such as repeating levels) be in dungeon / 
character / enemy design with a lot of fine balance as opposed to altering the 
concepts of how losing works?



On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 10:44 AM, Alan Wolfe 
<alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

I thought the experience giving you tickets thing was seperate from the dying 
thing, but the rest sounds right as far as i understand it yeah

On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 10:40 AM, Kent Petersen 
<kentkmp@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:kentkmp@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

Alan: I agree that the death scenario should not be for every time but for a 
few times that make sense for an extra bonus.

What did we settle on for saving and dieing? Game autosaves when you hit a 
savepoint and when you die you return to your save point with everything reset. 
Any experience earned turns into some kind of bonus point that can be spent on 
games?



On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 10:36 AM, Matthew Morgan 
<MMorgan@xxxxxxxxxx<mailto:MMorgan@xxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

Gotcha!





From: project1dev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:project1dev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
[mailto:project1dev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:project1dev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]
 On Behalf Of Alan Wolfe
Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2009 10:34 AM

To: project1dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:project1dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [project1dev] Re: combat musings - injuries, status, partylist, 
matchups and tagteaming



From the tech side, no reason why we can't do both (:



Not sure what the plan is though

On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 10:28 AM, Matthew Morgan 
<MMorgan@xxxxxxxxxx<mailto:MMorgan@xxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

I have a q, are the minigames in all the towns, or is it wandering vendors 
(like the guys in fallout who sell stuff?).





From: project1dev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:project1dev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
[mailto:project1dev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:project1dev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]
 On Behalf Of Alan Wolfe
Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2009 10:25 AM

To: project1dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:project1dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [project1dev] Re: combat musings - injuries, status, partylist, 
matchups and tagteaming



ok we can just do a straight up load last save game on death, and have spirit 
nodes do autosaves.



easier to program so im all for it! (:



Yeah your ticket idea sounds good to me

On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 10:20 AM, <figarus@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:figarus@xxxxxxxxx>> 
wrote:

Alan, I think maybe the character doesn't keep exp... Ppl could exploit that by 
killing some high exp boss, die and repeat... I was thinking that thing where 
it keeps track of your total player earned exp and can trade it to get minigame 
tickets - did you not like that idea?

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

________________________________

From: Matthew Morgan
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2009 10:02:02 -0700
To: 
project1dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:project1dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx><project1dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:project1dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>>

Subject: [project1dev] Re: combat musings - injuries, status, party list, 
matchups and tagteaming

That makes perfect sense, the only thing you get to keep is exp, so that would 
just overwrite after every battle, and everything else would get saved only if 
in a node?





From: project1dev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:project1dev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
[mailto:project1dev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:project1dev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]On
 Behalf Of Alan Wolfe
Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2009 10:01 AM
To: project1dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:project1dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [project1dev] Re: combat musings - injuries, status, party list, 
matchups and tagteaming



ok so when you die it does a load of the save it made when you were at the last 
node (or your last save game if you havent hit a node yet?) and resets 
everything to that point, but keeps any experience you've gained.



sound right?

On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 9:08 AM, <figarus@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:figarus@xxxxxxxxx>> 
wrote:

I dunno about gold

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

________________________________

From: Alan Wolfe
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:06:50 -0700

To: <project1dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:project1dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
Subject: [project1dev] Re: combat musings - injuries, status, party list, 
matchups and tagteaming

Ok so lose all items but keep exp and gold?

i think thats doable.

I think i'll just have it do the game save / load idea, but make it over-write 
the exp and gold after load with your at death exp and gold.

any other values we want to persist past death we can do in a similar manner 
too (:

On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 9:00 AM, Kent Petersen 
<kentkmp@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:kentkmp@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

I'm with Eric, you don't want to let them keep items when they die. I think 
keeping experience is good. If we design our dungeons properly there should be 
no reason for a boring walk back to town anyway. All levels should be engaging 
at all times, especially when they are almost finished. That's when you should 
pull out the big surprises.

I was thinking you could do it DnD style where your not really dead untill you 
achieve negative 10 life. So when you hit 0 your player or party member is 
knocked out and unusable. If you don't swap them out of combat they can still 
be targeted. If a knocked out player (a player with 0 life) is damaged further 
they can die, perhaps if your maxlife (as eric described above) drops below 0. 
A complete loss will only occur when everyone is dead and the player should not 
be able to be killed but only knocked out to 0 life. If there are no surviving 
party members to first aid him then the team loses and returns to a node.



On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 8:54 AM, Alan Wolfe 
<alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

that makes sense about the knockout before dying.

About not keeping items that makes sense.

Should they keep exp even then?

If not, we could just do an automatic game save at the spirit node and then 
load that when they died.

Can you think of a situation you'll ever want to do that is an exception to the 
rule?



On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 8:49 AM, eric drewes 
<figarus@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:figarus@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

turnbased fantasy rpg version of americas army style gameplay  :-P



On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 11:47 AM, Alan Wolfe 
<alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

That sounds decent (:



On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 8:45 AM, eric drewes 
<figarus@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:figarus@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

well i think health would probably work like a hybrid of halo and marvel vs 
capcom where you have two health bars, current life and max life, your current 
life can go up via auto healing or first aid, but your max life cannot be 
restored unless you're in a town.

example:

main character has:
max hp 100
current hp 100

he gets punched, losing life
max hp 90
current hp 70

now he uses first aid, bringing him back up to 90 (100 is truemax, but he 
cannot attain that)
max hp 90
current hp 90

this will also influence the strategy of party set up, tagteaming, etc.



On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 11:40 AM, Alan Wolfe 
<alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

Hey just thought of something else too...

Eric if you hate the war of attrition we could go the route of the modern games 
(or at least try it) like halo where you have hp but it recovers over time 
(like when you are in back row or maybe not in combat... or potentially all the 
time?)

Not sure if its a good idea, but its an idea :P

lol



On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 8:35 AM, Kent Petersen 
<kentkmp@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:kentkmp@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

I like the FF view better myself.

I'm am curious for the answer to Alan's questions as well.



On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 8:32 AM, eric drewes 
<figarus@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:figarus@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

100% definitely.  either ff style or maybe where its 3rd person over teh 
shoulder style.  i think you should be able to see them and with our gameplay 
style i think it'll be needed to show whats going on - visually and 
mechanically it'll be better.  i was actually gonna bring this up when we got 
into more detailed combat stuff :) glad we're on the same page there too.



On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 11:28 AM, Alan Wolfe 
<alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

BTW what do you think about us changing our battle view from the dragon quest 5 
view to the final fantasy view?

I kinda miss being able to see the characters, and see the weapons / attacks 
and skills the players use.

I think it makes the combat more epic and fun. Like think of fighting vargas or 
ultros where you see his tentacles slap your players, can you remember a fight 
like that at all in DQ5? i cant...most of the fights are unmemoriable, except 
for the ones where like 10 slimes form into the slime king hehe



On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 8:25 AM, Alan Wolfe 
<alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

I think switching out your characters could work, that kinda sounds cool and i 
can picture it in my head.

When you would switch, would you be able to switch any turn of combat, only the 
first, or what?  Also is there a penalty to switching or is it for free?  I'm 
just curious cause if one guy was dying you could swap him out with another and 
have a fresh guy, is that ok?

If so we could do soemthing like marvel vs capcom i think it was, where the 
team mates that are in the back row and not fighting slowly heal their wounds 
(in this case they heal a small amount as round time progresses) what you 
think?  If that is too overpowered, it could be something like they can only 
heal maximum up to the life they had before they got struck in the current 
battle.

Being held by one character and attacked by another makes sense.  Maybe its a 
skill, and what happens is when you use that skill, the character that used it 
has to keep using it each turn to hold onto the monster and that monster 
basically struggles each turn where it has some chance to escape but that uses 
up it's turn.  Just like real life if you oare outnumbered, grabbing hold of 
someone or wrestling around with them wouldnt be a good idea cause his buddies 
would kick your butt, but if there is like 1 monster left it could be a cool 
skill.  Like havin a guy like sabin be able to grab the last enemy and hold him 
while your other guys hit him would be a pretty useful skill (:

About the player never dying, on one hand i could see that working but on the 
other, couldnt you just scrape through anyhwere by walking through a dungeon 
and getting knocked out at each fight?  How do you balance that out?

Some cool ideas!



On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 6:36 AM, eric drewes 
<figarus@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:figarus@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

ok here is how i am thinking parties will work in combat...

there will be 3 active party members in any fight and 4 on the sidelines that 
can be "tagged in" (swapped) as a combat option for any of the active players 
INCLUDING the hero. this will allow you to sub out injured characters for fresh 
healthy ones, or if you want two people that can do a special attack, you can 
have them sub in to pull of a coup de grace, or maybe there is a MATCHUP you 
want to exploit.

Matchups? Huh?

Matchups are basically already existing in games but without anything to 
quantify them.  basically, if you're in battle against a big slow ogre or 
something, you can adjust your party to better match up w/ the enemy (enemies) 
you're fighting.  Maybe you want a big dude that can go mano-y-mano with the 
ogre, or a small quick dude who can exploit the ogre's plodding attack and slow 
defense.  Maybe you're up against a flying creature and arrows will be the best 
way to bring them down when standard attacks seem ineffectual.   Picking the 
best match up for what you're going against can mean the difference of life and 
death.

Injuries/status - we don't just want fights to be wars of attrition where you 
attack attack attack and try to slowly drain your foes life (and vice versa) - 
in real life, this would be the equivelent of standing in front of someone and 
punching them back and forth until someone died.  Silly!  i think most (if not 
all) of us are experienced martial artists and we know fights don't work like 
that, there are holds, throws, etc that can put your opponent in compromising 
situations that give you the advantage.  Add weapons to this and we have a fun 
system that is more dynamic than the typical rpg combat system.  Examples of 
this would be sweeps/tackles/throws that leave the enemy prone and thus unable 
to defend themselves as well, or entangled via nets, maybe even HELD by one 
character while the others beat it up (could we do this)?  or maybe getting 
maimed or hamstrung knocks you over, getting stunned (like street fighter when 
you do a certain combination the enemy can't move and has birds flying above 
their head) is another example.

This style of combat would add a lot of depth and strategy and make combat feel 
more "alive" and dangerous and fun.  Also it adds a lot of potential skills and 
techniques to our future list

Injuries - with our injury and death system, swapping to keep your team healthy 
is important.  This is kind of a big thing but I am sort of leaning towards 
thinking maybe MAYBE the hero can't die.  everyone else can, but if the hero is 
"knocked out" in battle, he's back after the fight. he can then go forward to 
try to find the next respawn node or maybe theres a "Recall" option where you 
can revert to the start of the dungeon with all your party members intact.  i 
think this will eliminate a lot of frustration as well as prevent people from 
keeping the hero on the sidelines worried he will die.

just as a quick guess... i am thinking you get 7 active party members (3 
active, 4 tagteamable) and then an additional 7 back at your "home base" that 
you can swap out ff style whenever you're there for a total of 14 in your 
party.  We will (ideally) have 40-50 recruitable characters so this forces you 
to make some decisions on who you want to pick but also gives you a large 
stable of characters so you don't feel like "shit, i have to give up one of my 
favs".


Just some thoughts... let me know what you think!



























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