Making melee combat interesting
Birdof...@gmail.com
thinking hard about how to do it in an interesting way. Since this
kind of segues into the bigger question of 'how much detail is too
much' I thought it might be a cool discussion.
One thing I've noticed in a lot of roguelikes is that melee characters
tend to be left in the lurch when it comes to interesting combat. When
my trollish barbarian opens a door in ADOM and is greeted by a room
full of goblin slavemasters, all I have to do is lean on the
directional button and about 500 messages later the room is cleared.
It seems to me that even though I tend to die a lot quicker and a lot
more often with more tactical characters like spellcasters, I tend to
enjoy it a lot more when I have to carefully position myself and
choose the right spell than when I just have to mash the numpad and
mop up a level, maybe stopping once or twice to heal in the middle.
The roguelike I'm working on at the moment is going to be pretty
heavily weighted towards melee combat, and I want to avoid the boredom
that sets in after a few floors of controlling a tank. Here are a
couple ideas that I had to take care of the problem, borrowed from
some current favorites of mine:
1. Combat flow and detailed descriptions - The first time I played
dwarf fortress in adventure mode I was bowled over by the combat
system. Like everything else in the game, combat is painstakingly
simulated, move by move. It wasn't just the heavy amount of detail
that impressed me, it was the way the battle flowed logically from
what happened beforehand. When my spear lodged inside an enemy and I
pressed back, i didn't feel like I was pressing the back button on a
keyboard, it felt like I was trying to wrest a spear out of my enemy's
carcass. Very immersive!
Obviously recreating this level of detail in a more conventional
roguelike would be considered overkill, but I think it could work to a
certain extent. Say there's an enemy on either side of you, and you
attack one and then attack the other, killing it. Instead of the
usual:
"You hit the goblin... ...You hit the ogre. The Ogre is killed!"
What if it went something like this:
"You slash at the goblin... You spin around, swinging, cleaving the
ogre neatly in half!"
Obviously there would have to be a lot of variation for different
positions and weapons, but if such a system was well-made I think it
would be worth the effort to create it. The usual 'you hit, you miss'
becomes a narrative.
As for actual changes to the game mechanics (beyond any text that
shows up), that kind of position specific combat flow would work well
with another thing I'm including in my combat system, which is attack
preparation time. Instead of any attacks immediately being carried out
on the creature's turn, they are pushed onto the same queue that
creature movements are lined up on. This is meant to simulate the time
it takes to wind back with a weapon, or aim it if you're using a
ranged weapon. Generally the timers involved will be very short, and
usually the targets involved won't have time to react, but
occasionally they will, and will have the opportunity to get out of
the way, unbalancing the attacker, or perhaps getting a quick shot in
first.
So now, back to the earlier example, if you're swinging around 180
degrees to attack the monster behind you, perhaps it'll add a bit of
time to the preparation time, but it might also add a damage bonus
because of the momentum behind it. If you're attacking the monster in
front of you and the monster behind you decides to take a swing at
you, it'll get a bonus chance to hit and maybe some extra bonus
damage. The idea isn't for these variations to completely take over
the game, so players will be wracking their brains on how to maximize
their damage and such. The changes I have in mind would be small, and
will usually balance each other out in some way, but I think if I
managed it right, it would help the role-playing aspect rather than
hurt it.
2. Weapon personalities - Another big problem when it comes to melee
combat I've noticed is that different weapons aren't really that
different at all. This is something that Doom RL (another one of my
current favorites) does very well, but the variation in weapons is
pretty much confined to ranged weapons (which isn't a downside in that
game, as ranged weapons are the primary ones you're gonna be using).
In more fantasy thremed games though, the only functional difference
between a mace and a sword is a slight variation in the damage dice,
and more skill in one kind of weapon than another. I think there's a
lot of potential in this area that isn't being used! What if, when you
gain a skill level with a certain weapon, you don't just get slightly
better at wielding and dealing damage with it, what if you could learn
weapon-specific skills? Someone who's fairly experienced with a long
sword may be able to swing his sword in a wide arc, not just hitting
one enemy in front of him but 3 within an arc? (Like, if you decided
to swing it at the NW space to you, it would pass through the W, NW
and N spaces adjacent to you).
And harking back to the idea of weapon preparation time, it seems
there's a lot that can be done here as well. Huge bulky weapons like
warhammers may have a significantly larger preparation time to attack
than a normal sword, but much higher damage and armor-ignoring
capabilities. On a similar note, the kind of weapon you're using could
affect the way it can be dodged as well: If an enemy's turn comes up
when you're preparing to swing a sword at it, and it decides to move
out of the way, maybe if it moved to the right or left of your swing
your hit would still connect but if it moved backwards you would miss.
It would be the opposite with a spear, where it would be more useful
for it to try and dodge right or left, since if it went backwards you
would have a good chance of hitting it anyway.
The real challenge of any of this would be to work it in such a way
that you could have detailed and exciting combat without the player
being deluged with too many tactical decisions to the point where the
game loses its sense of pace. Details are nice, but there's a point
where there's too many details and too many factors to worry about.
Wow this was a long-ass post. I hope it wasn't too rambly and
incoherent. Anyway, chime in with what you think. I know that some
ideas seem better in theory then they work in practice, and I'd like
to know how you guys think this kind of system would work in an actual
game in terms of fun and playability.
-Dan
Pointless
Good ideas. My suggestion is that anything that's displayed to the
player by way of a message should deal with the mechanics in SOME way.
So your idea of "hitting a goblin, then swinging around and slaying
the ogre" would just be confusing. It would leave the player asking
the question, "Why did I just get a unique message for that action?"
Also, it clutters the screen. Time spent reading uninteresting text is
time not spent enjoying the game.
Stick with your other idea of modifying game mechanics to make it more
interesting.
Pata...@gmail.com
Here's a thought I have; have a 'stamina' meter which is the
equivalent of a mage's magic, and can be used to execute things like
called shots, trips, disarmaments, staggering blows, sprinting etc to
control the fight. Things you can do to help you get out of a tough
situation but can only be called on so much. In addition to this
interesting terrain, doors that can be closed or locked or jammed,
slippery or rocky terrain, water. Things you can put between you and
your foes or push/pull them into.
Sample situation: You're in the middle of the room and a horde of
monsters who are slightly faster than you are closing in. Hefting up
your mace you bull-rush the closest one into the pile, causing two or
maybe three to fall prone and requiring the rest to move around them,
giving you enough time to get into the hallway and fight them one on
one.
Anders....@gmail.com
an interesting way. Piercing weapons (spears, crossbow bolts) have a
higher chance to hit an organ and cause a bleeding wound (instakill
for most purposes) which is great against big monsters that you can't
hope to wear down with a hammer. Hammers deal huge gobs of damage and
will take a humanoid down to "0 HP" in one hit, and is great against
undead (who don't care that the spear-user is poking out guts they
don't need). Swords and axes strike a balance between the two by
dealing decent damage and sometimes cutting off limbs (effective
instakill again).
The obvious problem is that a character who put his skillpoints in
spear-using at character generation is in fact screwed if he gets a
quest to kill undead. There is a balancing problem between making
"using the right weapon" beneficial and making it mandatory. (Edged
weapons work decent against anything, so you could steal the idea from
DF and recommend axes/swords to newbies.)
/Hällzon
Xecutor
> combat I've noticed is that different weapons aren't really that
> different at all. This is something that Doom RL (another one of my
While you mastering certain weapon, you gain
weapon-type specific special attacks.
They can only be executed while you wield this type of weapon.
I also thought a lot about how melee combat can be
made more interesting. One of the biggest problem
here is ballance between melee and ranged/magic.
In multiplayer melee and ranged fighters usually
have different roles, so there is no much need
to make them equally effective and/or difficult.
But in single player it's much more difficult, if possible at all.
I took different aproach - melee combat is prohibited for player :)
Jeff Lait
> On Sep 8, 7:02 am, BirdofPrey...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > One thing I've noticed in a lot of roguelikes is that melee characters
> > tend to be left in the lurch when it comes to interesting combat. When
> > my trollish barbarian opens a door in ADOM and is greeted by a room
> > full of goblin slavemasters, all I have to do is lean on the
> > directional button and about 500 messages later the room is cleared.
> > It seems to me that even though I tend to die a lot quicker and a lot
> > more often with more tactical characters like spellcasters, I tend to
> > enjoy it a lot more when I have to carefully position myself and
> > choose the right spell than when I just have to mash the numpad and
> > mop up a level, maybe stopping once or twice to heal in the middle.
>
> equivalent of a mage's magic, and can be used to execute things like
> called shots, trips, disarmaments, staggering blows, sprinting etc to
> control the fight.
I tend to not like that approach. It really us just turning Melee
into another magic system but with different names. Melee should be
essentially different from Magic.
For example, World of Warcraft did a neat system of "Rage" which is
the inverse of stamina - you gain it as the battle progresses, giving
melee players more options over time rather than less. This alone
makes for a sudden difference between the melee and magic user.
Personally, I think complaints about melee combat being boring in
roguelikes is a bit misguided. Usually, melee combat is intended to
be "boring" if what you mean is "straightforward".
It is an entirely valid and fun playstyle to "lean on the arrow key to
empty the room". Taking that option away doesn't improve the game -
it diminishes it. If I wanted to spend each turn dancing about
selecting random spells/skill/feats, I wouldn't be playing a melee
character, I'd be playing a magic user!
With most roguelikes, it is the *players* choice to play a melee
character. So if they find it boring, perhaps melee characters are
not for them?
I'll point out as well that most attempts to make it "more exciting"
do just the opposite. If you have 1000s of kills in a game, most will
be done by rote in the same manner. Instead of leaning the arrow keys
to clear the room, I'll instead step through the standard "bull rush,
charge, cleavex3" sequence that works in every such scenario. The
user typing a more complicated set of keypresses should not be
mistaken for the user thinking more or having more fun! If that room
really is so unchallenging that one can empty it with rote actions,
I'd rather the designer go the opposite direction and have an auto-
fight to turn leaning on the arrow key into a single key press!
One thing I hate about Japanese CRPGs is the tendency to require you
to hit 15 buttons and watch 20 seconds of animation to resolve a
trivial battle. It is a great feature of roguelikes that trivial
windshield kills can be treated as such. Sure, some naysayers will
claim that they'll make every battle epic and there won't be
windshield kills in their game. Good luck with that :>
--
Jeff Lait
(POWDER: http://www.zincland.com/powder)
daniel.ell...@gmail.com
You have some good points but I'm not necessarily talking about making
melee combat into a more "mage-like" system to the exclusion of tank
characters. It could work just as well as an addition, giving the
players more choices, not less. I don't think you should have to say
"You cn ether play as a melee character or a spellcasting character
and the two systems have to be different" and leave it at that. Why
not make it more of a gradient? Then a player who wants to just hack
and slash quickly through everything can choose his troll barbarian
and someone who prefers a more tactical, skill-choosing and dancing
around approach could choose a halfling duelist or whatever.
Anyways, I think if you designed the game with a system like that in
mind, it could avoid most of the problems you're bringing up.
Obviously something like that wouldn't work if you just plugged it
into ADOM because ADOM pits you against thousands of monsters, most of
which are 'windshield kills' like you're describing. I'll bet you're
right that it's just about impossible to eliminate windshield kills
altogether, but if you design with that goal in mind I bet you can
reduce it a LOT. Just make less enemies overall, but make them
stronger, smarter and more dangerous and that's already a good start.
daniel.ell...@gmail.com
Well the idea kind of is that most things like the positions and order
in which you attack things would almost always have some small effect
on the mechanics. While I can see how message clutter could be
distracting, it would be unfair to make tweaks to hit percentages and
damage dealt without telling the player anything extra. I think one
way to save the player from having to read detailed descriptions could
be a good color code for messages - one color if your hit connects,
another if it misses, another if you're hit, etc. That way you could
read what's happening in detail or take it all in at a glance.
DaveB
> On Sep 8, 2:45 am, Patas...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Sep 8, 7:02 am, BirdofPrey...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>> > One thing I've noticed in a lot of roguelikes is that melee characters
>> > tend to be left in the lurch when it comes to interesting combat. When
>> > my trollish barbarian opens a door in ADOM and is greeted by a room
>> > full of goblin slavemasters, all I have to do is lean on the
>> > directional button and about 500 messages later the room is cleared.
>> > It seems to me that even though I tend to die a lot quicker and a lot
>> > more often with more tactical characters like spellcasters, I tend to
>> > enjoy it a lot more when I have to carefully position myself and
>> > choose the right spell than when I just have to mash the numpad and
>> > mop up a level, maybe stopping once or twice to heal in the middle.
>>
> I'll point out as well that most attempts to make it "more exciting"
> do just the opposite. If you have 1000s of kills in a game, most will
> be done by rote in the same manner. Instead of leaning the arrow keys
> to clear the room, I'll instead step through the standard "bull rush,
> charge, cleavex3" sequence that works in every such scenario. The
> user typing a more complicated set of keypresses should not be
> mistaken for the user thinking more or having more fun! If that room
> really is so unchallenging that one can empty it with rote actions,
> I'd rather the designer go the opposite direction and have an auto-
> fight to turn leaning on the arrow key into a single key press!
I like the idea of an autofight option. If a windshield kill(s) appears
can't I just press a key (combination) that makes my character run up and
pummel it/them to death? Allow for interrupts (i.e. health reaches a
certain amount, a new nasty appears in view, opponent does something
different (zap or quaff something)). At least it saves leaning on the arrow
key and you can still watch the mayhem scroll by :)
Obviously not so useful for spell-casters who are likely to change actions
based on what the last spell did. However may be useful for those using
projectile weapons (add interrupt of NPC reaching one square away (weapon
change time)).
Dave
David Damerell
>One thing I've noticed in a lot of roguelikes is that melee characters
>tend to be left in the lurch when it comes to interesting combat. When
>my trollish barbarian opens a door in ADOM and is greeted by a room
>full of goblin slavemasters, all I have to do is lean on the
>directional button and about 500 messages later the room is cleared.
That's a problem (admittedly not a completely soluble one) with
difficulty, not the nature of combat. As far as is possible, don't
generate rooms with 500 messages worth of windshield kills.
>attack one and then attack the other, killing it. Instead of the
>usual:
>"You hit the goblin... ...You hit the ogre. The Ogre is killed!"
>What if it went something like this:
>"You slash at the goblin... You spin around, swinging, cleaving the
>ogre neatly in half!"
Then it would get tedious either immediately or after a little while,
depending on your prose skills. It would probably also cause you endless
pain with non-humanoid monsters being mismatched to descriptions.
>2. Weapon personalities - Another big problem when it comes to melee
>combat I've noticed is that different weapons aren't really that
>different at all.
You've got to watch this. The usual wrong direction to take here is that
certain weapons work very badly on certain monsters and the poor player
has to carry around a golfbag and switch all the time.
>lot of potential in this area that isn't being used! What if, when you
>gain a skill level with a certain weapon, you don't just get slightly
>better at wielding and dealing damage with it, what if you could learn
>weapon-specific skills?
POWDER has one weapon-specific skill per weapon, which add a moderate
amount of flavour.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Oil is for sissies
Today is Gouday, August.
David Damerell
[The entire previous article untrimmed. Ugh.]
>and the two systems have to be different" and leave it at that. Why
>not make it more of a gradient? Then a player who wants to just hack
>and slash quickly through everything can choose his troll barbarian
>and someone who prefers a more tactical, skill-choosing and dancing
>around approach could choose a halfling duelist or whatever.
Now you've got _two_ melee combat systems to balance. Good luck...
>reduce it a LOT. Just make less enemies overall, but make them
>stronger, smarter and more dangerous and that's already a good start.
Here you are onto something. When a roguelike's generating Angband-style
monster pits, something is probably already wrong.
Martin Read
>I like the idea of an autofight option. If a windshield kill(s) appears
>can't I just press a key (combination) that makes my character run up and
>pummel it/them to death?
Windshield kills are arguably a design flaw; better to only generate
monsters that will actually threaten the player character.
--
\_\/_/ turbulence is certainty turbulence is friction between you and me
\ / every time we try to impose order we create chaos
\/ -- Killing Joke, "Mathematics of Chaos"
Jeff Lait
> DaveB <so...@nope.com> wrote:
> >I like the idea of an autofight option. If a windshield kill(s) appears
> >can't I just press a key (combination) that makes my character run up and
> >pummel it/them to death?
>
> Windshield kills are arguably a design flaw; better to only generate
> monsters that will actually threaten the player character.
I think a proper amount of windshield kills is good in a roguelike.
These are teenage power fantasies - one goal of that is for you to
become really powerful so you can just wipe out rooms of kobolds by
looking at them funny.
If you have a "perfect" balance where the enemies always are
challenging, one gets the feeling one is in a red-queen's race - no
matter how much you level up, you are always weak and vulnerable. One
complaint about MMORPGs is often that characters are at their
strongest at birth - able to easily solo mobs of the same level -
while high end characters need teams of 40 to do likewise.
The problem isn't that the barbarian can clean out a room of weak
critters. The problem is that clearing out a room of weak critters is
annoying to the player. The mage, by contrast, can lob a couple fire
balls or some such and have a lot more fun. More I think about it, it
does seem ADOM could do well with an auto fight so the barbarian could
see an equally cool wipe of the room with a few keystrokes to reward
the hard work leveling up and equipping.
AutoFight, I think, lies in the same realm of AutoExplore. Or, for an
Angband reference, Squelch. It is showing a game design weakness in
one of the mini-games if they are needed. But, OTOH, eliminating a
minigame is a reasonable option if the rest of the game is strong.
The Save Scummer strawman only shows up if you have AutoFight,
AutoExplore and Squelch rolled into one :>
Paul Donnelly
> On Sep 9, 2:11 pm, Martin Read <mpr...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>> DaveB <so...@nope.com> wrote:
>> >I like the idea of an autofight option. If a windshield kill(s) appears
>> >can't I just press a key (combination) that makes my character run up and
>> >pummel it/them to death?
>>
>> Windshield kills are arguably a design flaw; better to only generate
>> monsters that will actually threaten the player character.
>
> I think a proper amount of windshield kills is good in a roguelike.
> These are teenage power fantasies - one goal of that is for you to
> become really powerful so you can just wipe out rooms of kobolds by
> looking at them funny.
>
> If you have a "perfect" balance where the enemies always are
> challenging, one gets the feeling one is in a red-queen's race - no
> matter how much you level up, you are always weak and vulnerable. One
> complaint about MMORPGs is often that characters are at their
> strongest at birth - able to easily solo mobs of the same level -
> while high end characters need teams of 40 to do likewise.
>
> The problem isn't that the barbarian can clean out a room of weak
> critters. The problem is that clearing out a room of weak critters is
> annoying to the player. The mage, by contrast, can lob a couple fire
> balls or some such and have a lot more fun.
The latest Diablo gives the fighter a bunch of special attacks for
fighting groups, doesn't it?
Darren Grey
> I think a proper amount of windshield kills is good in a roguelike.
> These are teenage power fantasies - one goal of that is for you to
> become really powerful so you can just wipe out rooms of kobolds by
> looking at them funny.
It's also satisfying to see the ogres you had trouble with 20 levels
ago become lambs to the slaughter. Plus in most roguelikes windshield
kills are still sources of necessary items/weapon skills etc.
Removing them means dramatically changing many aspects of a game, for
better or worse.
> If you have a "perfect" balance where the enemies always are
> challenging, one gets the feeling one is in a red-queen's race - no
> matter how much you level up, you are always weak and vulnerable.
This is the biggest complaint against Oblivion, where levelling up can
make the game much harder, and wolves and farmers are still a big
threat at level 30. No game should ever be like that.
Also, is it really that bad for players to be able to prepare and
become stronger in a game? The simple fact is many people like doing
that. Those that don't invent themselves lots of challenges instead.
A good game can cater to both by being neither too easy nor too hard.
Or having varied difficulty levels. The points system can also reward
faster or more underpowered victories.
> AutoFight, I think, lies in the same realm of AutoExplore.
Not necessarily. If it's configurable then there comes into question
all sorts of tactical play. An interesting comparison is FF12's
gambit system, whereby you choose a complex host of interactions
beforehand and watch battles unfold before your eyes. The whole game
then becomes about gambit preparation and switching tactics styles mid-
battle instead of just button mashing. Adapting this for a complex
roguelike would of course be difficult.
--
Darren Grey
Andrew Doull
wrote:
> Quoting <BirdofPrey...@gmail.com>:
> >2. Weapon personalities - Another big problem when it comes to melee
> >combat I've noticed is that different weapons aren't really that
> >different at all.
>
> You've got to watch this. The usual wrong direction to take here is that
> certain weapons work very badly on certain monsters and the poor player
> has to carry around a golfbag and switch all the time.
I'd argue this is exactlyl the right approach to take - virtual golf
bag notwithstanding.You should be encouragingt the player to consider
if the weapon is right for the job. This is a roguelike after alll...
Andrew
Soyweiser
> On Sep 9, 8:01 pm, Jeff Lait <torespondisfut...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > AutoFight, I think, lies in the same realm of AutoExplore.
>
> Not necessarily. If it's configurable then there comes into question
> all sorts of tactical play. An interesting comparison is FF12's
> gambit system, whereby you choose a complex host of interactions
> beforehand and watch battles unfold before your eyes. The whole game
> then becomes about gambit preparation and switching tactics styles mid-
> battle instead of just button mashing. Adapting this for a complex
> roguelike would of course be difficult.
>
> --
> Darren Grey
Why not have a system that has additional attacktypes (as described in
the goblin/ogre spin example above) and does this automatically as you
attack. Not as a skill that has to be activated but as a passive
skill.
For example, after constantly having monsters with low hp run away
from you, you gain the backstabber skill. Which gives a free attack
when a low-hp monster runs away. Or when you switch around from a
monster in front of you, to a monster in the back, the game
automatically adds to hit and damage bonuses. Without player
intervention. You could even reward actions that normally would be bad
for the player (not fully killing a monster, but switching targets
gives a bonus to hit on the monster)
As long as these actions happen automatically, and are told to the
player (a special text message for example) it would not make the
warrior types harder to play. But it would make the endless <x> hits
<y> <y> misses <x>, <x> misses <y> lists more interesting.
Special weapon skills, special attacks etc are all very nice. But they
would make the warrior like classes to much wizard like. Unless you
just use these special attacks as a sort of critical hits. (A skilled
swordsman has a chance of doing a sword swipe which hits all
unfriendly monsters next to the current target). So you can't really
directly invoke these special skills, but they will be invoked during
normal combat.
This would remove a bit of the tactics from playing a warrior type.
But you could argue that some people like to play the warrior type
because they do not want to be bothered by all the tactics that are
associated with a wizard type. And as long as the system does not feel
to random in applying the special attacks, the player would still feel
that he/she initiated the attack.
--
Soy 'should really go to sleep' weiser
Christophe
> I tend to not like that approach. It really us just turning Melee
> into another magic system but with different names. Melee should be
> essentially different from Magic.
On the other hand, when I think about the difference between a melee
char and a wizard, the first thing that comes to my mind is that the
later tend to blow up things, either from far away or as many at the
same time as possible, usually both, always as fast as possible. The
melee guy instead has to get (very) close to kill them but can take more
time to do it cause he can soak up more damage.
I see absolutly no problem with giving spells to the melee as long as it
still feels like a melee guy.
Jeff Lait
> On 9 sep, 23:16, Darren Grey <darrenjohng...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Sep 9, 8:01 pm, Jeff Lait <torespondisfut...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > <snip>
>
> > > AutoFight, I think, lies in the same realm of AutoExplore.
>
> > Not necessarily. If it's configurable then there comes into question
> > all sorts of tactical play. An interesting comparison is FF12's
> > gambit system, whereby you choose a complex host of interactions
> > beforehand and watch battles unfold before your eyes. The whole game
> > then becomes about gambit preparation and switching tactics styles mid-
> > battle instead of just button mashing. Adapting this for a complex
> > roguelike would of course be difficult.
>
> the goblin/ogre spin example above) and does this automatically as you
> attack. Not as a skill that has to be activated but as a passive
> skill.
This I am a big fan of. I've been working on this for POWDER. All of
the skills in POWDER are passive, precisely to distinguish them from
spells. Thus "charge" engages if you attack a creature in the same
direction you moved last turn.
> For example, after constantly having monsters with low hp run away
> from you, you gain the backstabber skill. Which gives a free attack
> when a low-hp monster runs away.
That is a nice way to handle backstabbing! Makes me wish monsters in
POWDER ever ran away so I could try to implement it :>
> Or when you switch around from a
> monster in front of you, to a monster in the back, the game
> automatically adds to hit and damage bonuses. Without player
> intervention.
Yeah, I see this being a Barbarian whirlwind style skill. So long as
you keep attacking in a circle your bonuses keep multiplying. The
downside, of course, is that you have to put yourself in the middle of
a crowd of enemies to use this, but heck, that is what barbarians are
about. I believe in trying to reward those who wade into combat
rather than always hiding in corridors fighting one critter at a
time :>
> Special weapon skills, special attacks etc are all very nice. But they
> would make the warrior like classes to much wizard like. Unless you
> just use these special attacks as a sort of critical hits. (A skilled
> swordsman has a chance of doing a sword swipe which hits all
> unfriendly monsters next to the current target). So you can't really
> directly invoke these special skills, but they will be invoked during
> normal combat.
That is how POWDER's weapon skills work. A stun attack isn't some
attack you chose. Instead, x% of the time when you land a blow with
the right weapon and right skill, you'll stun the enemy.
> This would remove a bit of the tactics from playing a warrior type.
> But you could argue that some people like to play the warrior type
> because they do not want to be bothered by all the tactics that are
> associated with a wizard type. And as long as the system does not feel
> to random in applying the special attacks, the player would still feel
> that he/she initiated the attack.
Well, they did initiate the attack when they moved into the target :>
I see it as automating the attack choice to "always pick best attack".
One thing I loved in Crawl (and stole for POWDER) is the automatic use
of extra attack possibilities. Ie, while fighting a critter with your
sword you might get "You gore the orc with your horns." The horn
attack is never explicitly made, and it isn't just a damage multiplier
to your weapon (where it would disappear and feel irrelevant), but is
a special attack that will auto-proc when proper.
What I hated about Everquest (the original) was the Kick attack. It
was this sort of out-of-band attack with no downside (ie, you should
always use it) but required you to manually hit Kick every time it
timed out. If there is no reason for me to not hit kick, then surely
it should just auto-proc?
Juho Julkunen
@l43g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>, torespon...@hotmail.com says...
> On Sep 9, 6:50 pm, Soyweiser <soywei...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Why not have a system that has additional attacktypes (as described in
> > the goblin/ogre spin example above) and does this automatically as you
> > attack. Not as a skill that has to be activated but as a passive
> > skill.
>
> This I am a big fan of. I've been working on this for POWDER. All of
> the skills in POWDER are passive, precisely to distinguish them from
> spells. Thus "charge" engages if you attack a creature in the same
> direction you moved last turn.
Is this not just a different method of activation?
That said, I am a fan of passive skills, myself. Contextual activation
is okay.
But all the talk of "wizards think every move, fighters hold down
button" tempts me to contemplate a game where wizards have one spell to
kill anything, while fighters have to be a lot more careful.
--
Juho Julkunen
Slash
> On 9 sep, 23:16, Darren Grey <darrenjohng...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Sep 9, 8:01 pm, Jeff Lait <torespondisfut...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > <snip>
SNIP
> Why not have a system that has additional attacktypes (as described in
> the goblin/ogre spin example above) and does this automatically as you
> attack. Not as a skill that has to be activated but as a passive
> skill.
Those passive skill exist already for the player on DrashRL as Combat
Maneuvers (http://slashie.net/page.php?14)
SNIP
> Or when you switch around from a
> monster in front of you, to a monster in the back, the game
> automatically adds to hit and damage bonuses. Without player
> intervention.
This is a skill named Cinetic Blow, already working on DrashRL :P
This is the list of combat maneuvers in DrashRL (Note that DrashRL is
classless, you shape your character as you advance)
COMBAT CHARGE
Run in a straight line for two steps and then jump into an enemy.
Enemy evasion is reduced to a third
Evasion breaking is double
Damage is tripled
Walking cost is reduced by 10
######### ######### ######### #########
#.......# #.......# #.......# #.......#
#.......# #.......# #.......# #.......#
#.@..m..# #..@.m..# #...@m..# #....@..#
#.......# #.......# #.......# #.......#
######### ######### ######### #########
Right Right CHARGE!
To perform a chance you need to engage into Brave tactics.
When charging you will see the 'Charge' indicator on the status line.
You can charge into any of the three positions ahead.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
WALL CORNER
Attack an enemy with a solid object behind him
Enemy evasion is reduced to a half
Damage is doubled
######### #########
#.......# #.......#
#.#.....# #.#.....#
#.#m@...# #.#%@...#
#.......# #.......#
######### #########
Corner Attack left!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
EVASION MIRAGE
Alternate directions along an axis
Evasion is increased by half of its remainder to 100%
######### ######### #########
#.......# #.......# #.......#
#.......# #..@....# #.......#
#.@....a# #......a# #...@..a#
#.......# #.......# #.......#
######### ######### #########
UpLeft Down Left, Mirage activated
When mirage is activated you will see the 'Dodging' indicator on the
status line
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
PIERCE
Attack with a long weapon in a direction to reach more than one enemy
######### #########
#.......# #.......#
#.......# #.......#
#.@mm...# #.@%%...#
#.......# #.......#
######### #########
Die!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CINETIC BLOW
Attack in a direction and then the opposite one
Enemy evasion is reduced to a half
Damage is increased by a half
######### ######### ######### #########
#.......# #.......# #.......# #.......#
#.......# #.......# #.......# #.......#
#..m@m..# #..m@m..# #..%@m..# #..%@%..#
#.......# #.......# #.......# #.......#
######### ######### ######### #########
Attack Right Cinetic attack right!
Cinetic attack left!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
DRASHBACK RAGE
Hit several enemies consecutively to activate a combat rage
Damage is increased by a half
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
HALF-SLASH
Move through an enemy to cut him
######### ######### #########
#.......# #.......# #.......#
#.......# #..@....# #.......#
#.@m....# #..m....# #..%@...#
#.......# #.......# #.......#
######### ######### #########
Up-Right Down-Right
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
COUNTER
Return your enemy blows
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
POWER BLOW
Store energy and unleash it on the next turn for an ultra strong blow
Enemy evasion is reduced to a half
Damage is increased by a half
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
COMBAT SLASH
Move through two enemies to cut them both.
######### ######### #########
#.......# #.......# #.......#
#.m.m...# #.%@m...# #.%.%...#
#.@m....# #..m....# #..%@...#
#.......# #.......# #.......#
######### ######### #########
Up-Right Down-Right
> You could even reward actions that normally would be bad
> for the player (not fully killing a monster, but switching targets
> gives a bonus to hit on the monster)
Why? :D
> As long as these actions happen automatically, and are told to the
> player (a special text message for example) it would not make the
> warrior types harder to play. But it would make the endless <x> hits
> <y> <y> misses <x>, <x> misses <y> lists more interesting.
>
> Special weapon skills, special attacks etc are all very nice. But they
> would make the warrior like classes to much wizard like. Unless you
> just use these special attacks as a sort of critical hits. (A skilled
> swordsman has a chance of doing a sword swipe which hits all
> unfriendly monsters next to the current target). So you can't really
> directly invoke these special skills, but they will be invoked during
> normal combat.
I agree
SNIP
>
> --
> Soy 'should really go to sleep' weiser
--
Slashie
David Damerell
>On Sep 10, 1:59=A0am, David Damerell <damer...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
>>You've got to watch this. The usual wrong direction to take here is that
>>certain weapons work very badly on certain monsters and the poor player
>>has to carry around a golfbag and switch all the time.
>I'd argue this is exactlyl the right approach to take - virtual golf
>bag notwithstanding.You should be encouragingt the player to consider
>if the weapon is right for the job. This is a roguelike after alll...
Endless equipment switching. Bleah. With a side order of bleah.
Particularly when difficulty is pitched such that routine kills are not
challenging but still need you to rummage in the golfbag.
Making the player think is one thing; making them do something that
requires no thought hundreds of times is another.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Distortion Field!
Today is Chedday, August.
Birdof...@gmail.com
I guess I explained myself badly, because that's EXACTLY what I'm
talking about! :D
It would be ridiculous to have the player need to specifically choose
the spin around move. All the scenarios I'm talking about there would
be implicit. The keystrokes for attacking one monster and then the
other would be exactly the same as in any other roguelike, but the
mechanics & message would reflect the flow of combat.
I just thought of a way to kind of combine my two ideas as well. Make
all (or at least most) of the special weapon skills passive, and make
them trainable. Now if you're wielding a spear and you charge into two
enemies, one behind the other, it has a chance of impaling the first
creature to hit the second creature, and every time you try you
exercise that skill, getting better at it so it happens more often and
does more damage when it works.
That actually seems like the idea solution for me, and unless someone
comes up with a really compelling reason it sucks I think I'm going to
try and include that in my game :)
Birdof...@gmail.com
Oh yeah, and I could make plenty of general skills too, so there's an
inherent advantage to sticking with one weapon and getting really good
at it, but you wouldn't be doomed if you decided to switch later since
your general combat experience could bolster you up.
Billy Bissette
a60f-89d...@t1g2000pra.googlegroups.com:
The silliness of the golfbag image is enough to indicate some
potential problem with the system. Excessive equipment switching is
not a requirement for a Roguelike. But people certainly may find it
silly when they find themselves switching between five different
weapons and three suits of armor based on what enemy they are
approaching.
It just doesn't fit that whole "fantasy hero" idea. Did Conan
carry around a mace just in case he ran into skeletons? Did Brak
carry holy water in case he ran into nasty undead? Sure, you find
a few golfbag characters in fantasy stories, but they are more often
an exception even in their own worlds.
But the biggest issue is gameplay itself, in particular that such
systems can quickly and easily be annoying for players. You either
discourage the player from using certain weapons (when certain types
are either more effective or ineffective than others in general,) or
you force the player to switch between them repeatedly (when every
weapon has different effective and ineffective enemies.)
While it may take some thought to figure out which weapons you
want to carry, there isn't so much thought in which weapons you may
actually want to use. I may carry four weapons to try to cover
all my bases, but I'll always switch to the mace against skeletons
and the spear against giant scorpions, unless the act of switching
itself is too dangerous. But of course the game will require me to
manually switch back and forth every time.
When areas are unthemed, this can become a major annoyance, with
the player potentially switching equipment between every battle.
Themed areas reduce the annoyance, but do so by reducing the need
to switch weapons in general. If I know I'm going into a cemetary
area, then I'll rely on weapons that work against undead and avoid
the weapons that don't. Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll have one or two
things that will work well against everything I'll likely face in
a cemetary, and may not need to switch at all.
Different degrees of effectiveness are similar to themed versus
unthemed areas. The reason minor differences in effectiveness can
be seen as less annoying is that the player isn't as punished if
they pretty much ignore switching. Players just ignore your
complicated system by choosing the weapon that does best in general.
One weirdness to consider is player perception of bonus versus
penalty, though. Players are more likely to get upset if they see
the difference as a penalty versus as a bonus. Having weapons that
are double damage against undead is perceived differently than
having weapons that are half damage, even if the two systems are
functionally equivalent with enough of a defense/health difference
in your undead monsters.
Billy Bissette
news:MPG.233202cd4...@news.kolumbus.fi:
> In article <1ce93a7d-b574-4c5f-9ad4-ae97387c8a94
> @l43g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>, torespon...@hotmail.com says...
>> On Sep 9, 6:50 pm, Soyweiser <soywei...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> > Why not have a system that has additional attacktypes (as described in
>> > the goblin/ogre spin example above) and does this automatically as you
>> > attack. Not as a skill that has to be activated but as a passive
>> > skill.
>>
>> This I am a big fan of. I've been working on this for POWDER. All of
>> the skills in POWDER are passive, precisely to distinguish them from
>> spells. Thus "charge" engages if you attack a creature in the same
>> direction you moved last turn.
>
> Is this not just a different method of activation?
I think the point is that it isn't a specific separate command.
You don't choose between doing a regular attack or a charge, rather
the charge automatically replaces the regular attack.
Billy Bissette
f8ded8...@m3g2000hsc.googlegroups.com:
> (A skilled
> swordsman has a chance of doing a sword swipe which hits all
> unfriendly monsters next to the current target).
It is worth considering that attacks like this could conflict with
special monster designs. If you get creative with monster designs,
then the player may find himself facing creatures that he doesn't
necessarily *want* to hit. For example, you might make creatures that
damage certain weapons used against them, like blunting swords against
rock creatures or fire elementals that melt or burn unprotected items.
Or creatures where attacks trigger some sort of action, such as
spurting acidic blood or causing gel/slime creatures to split?
Some players might complain about random attacks as well,
particularly the more they diverge from simply being extra damage
or some beneficial side-effect upon the target.
zai...@zaimoni.com
> At the moment I'm starting to flesh out my combat system and I've been
> thinking hard about how to do it in an interesting way. Since this
> kind of segues into the bigger question of 'how much detail is too
> much' I thought it might be a cool discussion.
>
> tend to be left in the lurch when it comes to interesting combat.
True, although this is more a matter of time scale than anything.
> .... I tend to
> enjoy it a lot more when I have to carefully position myself and
> choose the right spell than when I just have to mash the numpad and
> mop up a level, maybe stopping once or twice to heal in the middle.
>
> The roguelike I'm working on at the moment is going to be pretty
> heavily weighted towards melee combat, and I want to avoid the boredom
> that sets in after a few floors of controlling a tank. Here are a
> couple ideas that I had to take care of the problem, borrowed from
> some current favorites of mine:
>
> 1. Combat flow and detailed descriptions - ....
>
> Obviously recreating this level of detail in a more conventional
> roguelike would be considered overkill, but I think it could work to a
> certain extent. Say there's an enemy on either side of you, and you
> attack one and then attack the other, killing it. Instead of the
> usual:
> "You hit the goblin... ...You hit the ogre. The Ogre is killed!"
> What if it went something like this:
> "You slash at the goblin... You spin around, swinging, cleaving the
> ogre neatly in half!"
>
> ....
>
> As for actual changes to the game mechanics (beyond any text that
> shows up), ....
This is putting things backwards.
* No description changes should be made without corresponding game
mechanics.
* The level of detail in the description, itself directs attention.
As a matter of storytelling, interesting descriptions should not be
wasted on common events.
> 2. Weapon personalities - Another big problem when it comes to melee
> combat I've noticed is that different weapons aren't really that
> different at all. This is something that Doom RL (another one of my
> current favorites) does very well, but the variation in weapons is
> pretty much confined to ranged weapons (which isn't a downside in that
> game, as ranged weapons are the primary ones you're gonna be using).
> In more fantasy thremed games though, the only functional difference
> between a mace and a sword is a slight variation in the damage dice,
> and more skill in one kind of weapon than another. I think there's a
> lot of potential in this area that isn't being used!
Agreed -- and that shouldn't be used except to allow micromanaging
melee. Armor would have to be addressed as well as weapons.
> ....
>
> The real challenge of any of this would be to work it in such a way
> that you could have detailed and exciting combat without the player
> being deluged with too many tactical decisions to the point where the
> game loses its sense of pace. Details are nice, but there's a point
> where there's too many details and too many factors to worry about.
More importantly, actually making it evident what consequences the
decisions have requires exposing quite a bit of internal combat
mechanics. This is "sort of fine" for a wargame approach, but doesn't
work at all well for an RPG approach.
Krice
> Anyway, chime in with what you think.
I think there is a simple way to make combat more
interesting and that is use less combat and more
something else. Games like Nethack are lame, because
there is not much else to do than hack enemies.
Martin Read
>Soyweiser <soyw...@gmail.com> wrote in news:481f081c-4e8b-4754-9142-
>f8ded8...@m3g2000hsc.googlegroups.com:
>> (A skilled
>> swordsman has a chance of doing a sword swipe which hits all
>> unfriendly monsters next to the current target).
>
> It is worth considering that attacks like this could conflict with
>special monster designs.
Or remove a weak monster that the player is using as a meatshield to
control the flow of stronger enemies. (Whether being able to do that is
good game design is of course a separate question - but if it's
permitted by the game, then improving my skills shouldn't impair my
ability to do it.)
Martin Read
>More importantly, actually making it evident what consequences the
>decisions have requires exposing quite a bit of internal combat
>mechanics. This is "sort of fine" for a wargame approach, but doesn't
>work at all well for an RPG approach.
Conveniently, roguelikes are more like trooper-level wargames than they
are like roleplaying games.
gize...@gmail.com
> I think there is a simple way to make combat more
> interesting and that is use less combat and more
> something else. Games like Nethack are lame, because
> there is not much else to do than hack enemies.
Are there any procedural world/level generation algorithms that give
enough variety to make moving the emphasis of an RL from tactical
combat to exploration an interesting option for players, though?
Further, I'm not convinced 'being a hack and slash' is a design flaw
unless the game is trying to not be a hack and slash, and Nethack
doesn't seem to desire to be anything but a hack and slash. Just
because I dislike the 2d side-scrolling beat-em-up genre doesn't mean
that games in that genre are fundamentally flawed due to being in that
genre, afterall.
DaveB
> DaveB <so...@nope.com> wrote:
>>I like the idea of an autofight option. If a windshield kill(s) appears
>>can't I just press a key (combination) that makes my character run up and
>>pummel it/them to death?
>
> Windshield kills are arguably a design flaw; better to only generate
> monsters that will actually threaten the player character.
However also useful for some none-windshield cases. A good example is the
first level of Crawl. I see a hobgoblin by itself - I'll aim to kill it
(which usually takes a few keystrokes). If I see two I'll run away or try
to take them out individually from a separate direction. The first
situation has a use for auto-fight, the second situation needs tactics and
no autofight (if the second hobgoblin reappears I have to suddenly
re-evaluate the situation).
Pure windshield kills also have their place. They can drain a mage's magic,
use up ammo (arrows / darts) and maybe even fluke an injury on a fighter. I
had a case last night on crawl where I used most my darts (and my dagger of
returning (which didn't in this case)) on some easy kills, and Sigmund
walked around the corner - I fled leaving myself with very little ammo for
a while :(
Dave
Billy Bissette
news:48c9d3f6$0$31978$5a62...@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au:
> Martin Read wrote:
>
>> DaveB <so...@nope.com> wrote:
>>>I like the idea of an autofight option. If a windshield kill(s)
>>>appears can't I just press a key (combination) that makes my
>>>character run up and pummel it/them to death?
>>
>> Windshield kills are arguably a design flaw; better to only generate
>> monsters that will actually threaten the player character.
>
> However also useful for some none-windshield cases. A good example is
> the first level of Crawl. I see a hobgoblin by itself - I'll aim to
> kill it (which usually takes a few keystrokes). If I see two I'll run
> away or try to take them out individually from a separate direction.
> The first situation has a use for auto-fight, the second situation
> needs tactics and no autofight (if the second hobgoblin reappears I
> have to suddenly re-evaluate the situation).
I'm not sure I'd count a lone hobgoblin early in Crawl a windshield
kill, even if you do roll right over him. At the least, it isn't a
problematic windshield kill.
> Pure windshield kills also have their place. They can drain a mage's
> magic, use up ammo (arrows / darts) and maybe even fluke an injury on
> a fighter. I had a case last night on crawl where I used most my darts
> (and my dagger of returning (which didn't in this case)) on some easy
> kills, and Sigmund walked around the corner - I fled leaving myself
> with very little ammo for a while :(
The idea that minor battles wear down a character's resources is
pretty much the main gameplay justification for such encounters.
While a quite valid point, it isn't necessarily *good* gameplay.
Particularly when it begins to wear down the player himself.
It also is one of the biggest problems in trying to automate such
battles. Console RPGs have issues with it even when they try it,
and they don't even have the added complication of the world moving
on around outside of the battle. (For example, you won't have
Sigmund appear while you are in the middle of beating up some easy
kills.)
Pointless
The way I approach this is to have a a small number of stats. These
stats control everything that can be randomized, from the dungeon
format, to combat effectiveness, to which skills are useful, to which
monsters are faced.
The usefulness of this is that it eliminates the "quite a bit" clause
in your argument: the player only has to accomodate a few numbers. The
effects of these numbers can be inferred broadly.
So, for example, give the character two stats, like "strength" and
"dexterity". Characters with high strength have access to certain
weapon skills and do higher damage in combat. Characters with high
dexterity have access to other weapon skills and do more attacks per
round. Better yet, combine these into a "combat" statistic or
something.
Simon Richard Clarkstone
> This is the list of combat maneuvers in DrashRL (Note that DrashRL is
> classless, you shape your character as you advance)
>
> COMBAT CHARGE
> Run in a straight line for two steps and then jump into an enemy.
> WALL CORNER
> Attack an enemy with a solid object behind him
> EVASION MIRAGE
> Alternate directions along an axis
> PIERCE
> Attack with a long weapon in a direction to reach more than one enemy
> CINETIC BLOW
> Attack in a direction and then the opposite one
the Greek word, and the c would be soft in this situation in English.
Plus, it looks too much like "cinematic" (which is, to be fair,
etymologically related), which means something potentially appropriate
but different.
[...]
> DRASHBACK RAGE
> Hit several enemies consecutively to activate a combat rage
[...]
> HALF-SLASH
> Move through an enemy to cut him
[...]
> COUNTER
> Return your enemy blows
[...]
> POWER BLOW
> Store energy and unleash it on the next turn for an ultra strong blow
[...]
> COMBAT SLASH
> Move through two enemies to cut them both.
Neat set of ideas! Are there any unarmed-only moves? See SLASH'EM's
monks and lots of Jackie Chan movies for ideas.
--
Simon Richard Clarkstone:
s.r.cl?rkst?n?@dunelm.org.uk / s?m?n_cl?rkst?n?@yahoo.co.uk
| My half-daughter went to the GMH riots |
| But all I got was this stupid ･-shirt. |
jot...@hotmail.com
> | My half-daughter went to the GMH riots |
> | But all I got was this stupid ¥-shirt. |
Love that, it's gotta make positioning and the terrain matter a whole
lot more!
Another move: Wall Jump (and cut) ;)
Jotaf
Gerry Quinn
aabec5...@k13g2000hse.googlegroups.com>, Birdof...@gmail.com
says...
> 2. Weapon personalities - Another big problem when it comes to melee
> combat I've noticed is that different weapons aren't really that
> different at all. This is something that Doom RL (another one of my
> current favorites) does very well, but the variation in weapons is
> pretty much confined to ranged weapons (which isn't a downside in that
> game, as ranged weapons are the primary ones you're gonna be using).
> In more fantasy thremed games though, the only functional difference
> between a mace and a sword is a slight variation in the damage dice,
> and more skill in one kind of weapon than another. I think there's a
> lot of potential in this area that isn't being used! What if, when you
> gain a skill level with a certain weapon, you don't just get slightly
> better at wielding and dealing damage with it, what if you could learn
> weapon-specific skills? Someone who's fairly experienced with a long
> sword may be able to swing his sword in a wide arc, not just hitting
> one enemy in front of him but 3 within an arc? (Like, if you decided
> to swing it at the NW space to you, it would pass through the W, NW
> and N spaces adjacent to you).
Or you can give different weapons different properties... maces stun,
daggers hit very fast, etc,
- Gerry Quinn
Gerry Quinn
mpr...@chiark.greenend.org.uk says...
> DaveB <so...@nope.com> wrote:
> >I like the idea of an autofight option. If a windshield kill(s) appears
> >can't I just press a key (combination) that makes my character run up and
> >pummel it/them to death?
>
> Windshield kills are arguably a design flaw; better to only generate
> monsters that will actually threaten the player character.
One option is to eliminate natural health regeneration - then even a
fairly harmless monster needs to be killed efficiently lest it take 2
hard-to-recover hitpoints off you.
- Gerry Quinn
Risto Saarelma
> In article <c212ebad-a75b-477f-a611-
> aabec5...@k13g2000hse.googlegroups.com>, Birdof...@gmail.com
> says...
>> sword may be able to swing his sword in a wide arc, not just hitting
>> one enemy in front of him but 3 within an arc? (Like, if you decided
>> to swing it at the NW space to you, it would pass through the W, NW
>> and N spaces adjacent to you).
>
> Or you can give different weapons different properties... maces stun,
> daggers hit very fast, etc,
Stun is good, but does the quick hitting really differentiate daggers?
Damage per second is the same for a sword that does an average 10
damage once a second and a dagger that does 5 damage twice a second.
If the timing model is up for it, you could have enemies special
abilities that need a short uninterrupted interval to activate. So the
enemy could trigger the special ability between sword swings, but
wouldn't have time between the more frequent dagger stabs. This is kind
of counterintuitive though, as the preconception is that swords are a
lot better for controlling enemies than daggers.
Maybe swords should be considered just plain better in normal open
combat. Daggers are more useful in various tricky scenarios. They can be
thrown, backstabbed with, used to stab the enemy while grappling,
smuggled past weapon checkpoints, used in ritual magic and so on.
I sometimes thought about a melee weapon system that had eight weapon
categories with some gameplay distinction. The system has two
dimensions. Weapon class can be polearm, heavy, fencing or simple and
weapon type can be blunt or sharp.
Pole weapons like spears, quarterstaves and halberds give extra defense
due to their reach. Heavy weapons like mauls and battle axes do lots of
damage but leave the user open for counterattacks. Fencing weapons like
swords give average attack and defense and allow fancy maneuvers like
disarming foes. Simple weapons like maces and daggers don't do anything
as impressive as the more specialized weapons, but they are easy to use.
An untrained fighter with a simple weapon has an advantage over an
untrained fighter with a specialized wepon.
Sharp weapons hurt living things more, and are more effective at
actually killing people. Blunt weapons are less effective, and tend to
knock people down instead of killing them. Various supernatural
creatures (due to surprisingly consistent supernaturalness) aren't very
much bothered by being cut or jabbed with sharp weapons, but they do
fall apart when hit with a big hammer. Think skeletons, earth golems and
slimes for example. So blunt weapons are used by monster hunter type
characters who specialize in smashing up unnatural creatures and can
avoid bad karma by just knocking other people around a bit instead of
outright killing them. Sharp weapons are used by mercenary characters,
who specialize in hurting and killing other people. They aren't as
effective against monsters and get bad karma for killing people instead
of knocking them out, but they can get very good at cutting up people.
It's not really clear what the weapons for the blunt fencing category
should be. The best one I came up with was flails and nunchaku.
Michal Bielinski
> On 2008-09-20, Gerry Quinn <ger...@indigo.ie> wrote:
>> Or you can give different weapons different properties... maces stun,
>> daggers hit very fast, etc,
>
> Stun is good, but does the quick hitting really differentiate daggers?
> Damage per second is the same for a sword that does an average 10
> damage once a second and a dagger that does 5 damage twice a second.
Armor applies twice. Electric brand is much better on quick weapons.
Hero will deal faster with hordes of windshield monsters losing less
health to them. Probably few more.
--
Michal Bielinski
Edwin DeNicholas
> At the moment I'm starting to flesh out my combat system and I've been
> thinking hard about how to do it in an interesting way. Since this
> kind of segues into the bigger question of 'how much detail is too
> much' I thought it might be a cool discussion.
>
> One thing I've noticed in a lot of roguelikes is that melee characters
> my trollish barbarian opens a door in ADOM and is greeted by a room
> full of goblin slavemasters, all I have to do is lean on the
> directional button and about 500 messages later the room is cleared.
> It seems to me that even though I tend to die a lot quicker and a lot
> more often with more tactical characters like spellcasters, I tend to
> enjoy it a lot more when I have to carefully position myself and
> choose the right spell than when I just have to mash the numpad and
> mop up a level, maybe stopping once or twice to heal in the middle.
>
> The roguelike I'm working on at the moment is going to be pretty
> heavily weighted towards melee combat, and I want to avoid the boredom
> that sets in after a few floors of controlling a tank. Here are a
> couple ideas that I had to take care of the problem, borrowed from
> some current favorites of mine:
>
> dwarf fortress in adventure mode I was bowled over by the combat
> system. Like everything else in the game, combat is painstakingly
> simulated, move by move. It wasn't just the heavy amount of detail
> that impressed me, it was the way the battle flowed logically from
> what happened beforehand. When my spear lodged inside an enemy and I
> pressed back, i didn't feel like I was pressing the back button on a
> keyboard, it felt like I was trying to wrest a spear out of my enemy's
> carcass. Very immersive!
>
> Obviously recreating this level of detail in a more conventional
> roguelike would be considered overkill, but I think it could work to a
> certain extent. Say there's an enemy on either side of you, and you
> attack one and then attack the other, killing it. Instead of the
> usual:
> "You hit the goblin... ...You hit the ogre. The Ogre is killed!"
> What if it went something like this:
> "You slash at the goblin... You spin around, swinging, cleaving the
> ogre neatly in half!"
>
> positions and weapons, but if such a system was well-made I think it
> would be worth the effort to create it. The usual 'you hit, you miss'
> becomes a narrative.
>
> As for actual changes to the game mechanics (beyond any text that
> with another thing I'm including in my combat system, which is attack
> preparation time. Instead of any attacks immediately being carried out
> on the creature's turn, they are pushed onto the same queue that
> creature movements are lined up on. This is meant to simulate the time
> it takes to wind back with a weapon, or aim it if you're using a
> ranged weapon. Generally the timers involved will be very short, and
> usually the targets involved won't have time to react, but
> occasionally they will, and will have the opportunity to get out of
> the way, unbalancing the attacker, or perhaps getting a quick shot in
> first.
> So now, back to the earlier example, if you're swinging around 180
> degrees to attack the monster behind you, perhaps it'll add a bit of
> time to the preparation time, but it might also add a damage bonus
> because of the momentum behind it. If you're attacking the monster in
> front of you and the monster behind you decides to take a swing at
> you, it'll get a bonus chance to hit and maybe some extra bonus
> damage. The idea isn't for these variations to completely take over
> the game, so players will be wracking their brains on how to maximize
> their damage and such. The changes I have in mind would be small, and
> will usually balance each other out in some way, but I think if I
> managed it right, it would help the role-playing aspect rather than
> hurt it.
>
> 2. Weapon personalities - Another big problem when it comes to melee
> combat I've noticed is that different weapons aren't really that
> different at all. This is something that Doom RL (another one of my
> current favorites) does very well, but the variation in weapons is
> pretty much confined to ranged weapons (which isn't a downside in that
> game, as ranged weapons are the primary ones you're gonna be using).
> In more fantasy thremed games though, the only functional difference
> between a mace and a sword is a slight variation in the damage dice,
> and more skill in one kind of weapon than another. I think there's a
> lot of potential in this area that isn't being used! What if, when you
> gain a skill level with a certain weapon, you don't just get slightly
> better at wielding and dealing damage with it, what if you could learn
> sword may be able to swing his sword in a wide arc, not just hitting
> one enemy in front of him but 3 within an arc? (Like, if you decided
> to swing it at the NW space to you, it would pass through the W, NW
> and N spaces adjacent to you).
>
> there's a lot that can be done here as well. Huge bulky weapons like
> warhammers may have a significantly larger preparation time to attack
> than a normal sword, but much higher damage and armor-ignoring
> capabilities. On a similar note, the kind of weapon you're using could
> affect the way it can be dodged as well: If an enemy's turn comes up
> when you're preparing to swing a sword at it, and it decides to move
> out of the way, maybe if it moved to the right or left of your swing
> your hit would still connect but if it moved backwards you would miss.
> It would be the opposite with a spear, where it would be more useful
> for it to try and dodge right or left, since if it went backwards you
> would have a good chance of hitting it anyway.
>
> The real challenge of any of this would be to work it in such a way
> that you could have detailed and exciting combat without the player
> being deluged with too many tactical decisions to the point where the
> game loses its sense of pace. Details are nice, but there's a point
> where there's too many details and too many factors to worry about.
>
> incoherent. Anyway, chime in with what you think. I know that some
> ideas seem better in theory then they work in practice, and I'd like
> to know how you guys think this kind of system would work in an actual
> game in terms of fun and playability.
>
> -Dan
Dan,
I think you can find some exciting ideas for weapon personalities by
doing some research into the historical use and design of melee
weapons. As a contrived example, the Bardiche is a polearm with an axe
head, a spike at the end of the haft, and a spike or hook opposite the
axe head. In close quarters combat the weapon was used in a thrusting
motion, piercing with the spike, or similar to a pike can be
stabilized in the ground and absorb a charge. Given enough room, the
axe head was used to deliver heavy damage. The hook was used to
dismount cavalry. And don't forget a polearm has a pole, which does
crushing damage (technically so will the axe head vs. armored/skeletal
opponents, since the velocity of a full swing should make up for it's
lighter mass). The long pole is also excellent for blocking in lieu of
a shield, so provide a defensive bonus versus some melee attacks.
So keeping with the streamlined approach, any warrior worth his salt
knows when to use the appropriate intrinsic halberd special:
* adjacent, standing opponent = stab with spike, piercing
* adjacent, standing skeletal = quick smash with haft end, crushing
* adjacent, dazed/stunned opponent = full swing with axe blade,
slashing (lightly armored)/ crushing (heavily armored, skeletal)
* passive bonus to blocking melee, non thrusting attacks
But still allowing for deliberate, situational attack choices:
* poke at an enemy 1 tile away, using the spike (island of kesmai
style :) )
* a low swing of the axe blade in a large arc, possibly knocking over
adjacent enemies or forcing them to dodge
* stabilize the weapon against the ground in anticipation of a
charging opponent
-Edwin
I Own The Letter O
Whilst a dagger may hit quicker or give a quicker action recovery time
or however your system works. The sword has the benefit of range. If
we start adding speed of attack as a 'personality' to the weapon, then
we (I believe) need range or something similar to counter it.
If a spearman is fighting a buckler/rapier fencer at novice level the
spearman tries to jab with his range, the fencer tries to defend with
his shield and break the range. If the fencer is more experienced he
can get inside the range using his shield (or sword) to pin the spear
and attack. If the spearman is more experienced he can reduce the
range of his weapon (by feeding it backwards), use the weapon to sweep
etc and counteract the disadvantage of having his range broken.
Xecutor
> If a spearman is fighting a buckler/rapier fencer at novice level the
> spearman tries to jab with his range, the fencer tries to defend with
> his shield and break the range. If the fencer is more experienced he
> can get inside the range using his shield (or sword) to pin the spear
> and attack. If the spearman is more experienced he can reduce the
> range of his weapon (by feeding it backwards), use the weapon to sweep
> etc and counteract the disadvantage of having his range broken.
I'm afraid it's almost impossible to implement this
in a turn based tile based game.
I was thinking about contiguous space/time roguelike...
But it seems that it even with "autopause on idle" feature it
couldn't be called roguelike anymore :)
I Own The Letter O
humanoid races with several varieties of 'units', leaving real
monsters for horrors or bosses) then this sort of thing can be used
implicitly as a selection of passive skills or selectable stances
(being somewhere between a passive and active skill). Create a
selection of trees based on equipment/unit types and through training
or spending experience you increase your ability against that type.
Also a roguelike is exactly that rogue-like, not rogue-copy or rogue-
duplicate, rogue-like. We've evolved so many differences now, one more
isn't going to hurt if the overall feeling is the same. I think it
might be possible using a variety of explicit/passive skills and a
turn-based system based on the various creatures inherent speeds
rather than I get a go you get a go.
***
Initially I agreed with the point further above about keeping mages
magey and fighters fighty, not giving fighters to much explicit
choice. But then I remembered my first days of playing RLs and being
amazed at the sheer volume of start-up options available. Amongst all
the tanks, DPSers, big-hitters and the like we can spare a melee
fighter who has explicit choices of skills rather than relying on
passive skills or stances or similar. After all it was the sheer
choice available that made me (and many others) a fan of RL. If you
have time and inclination you can code a tactical fighter where you
have to select each attack - and - leave in the tank who can clear a
room just by alternating between holding down left then right.
Gamer_2k4
> On Sep 10, 1:59 am, David Damerell <damer...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
> wrote:
>
> > Quoting <BirdofPrey...@gmail.com>:
> > >combat I've noticed is that different weapons aren't really that
> > >different at all.
>
> > certain weapons work very badly on certain monsters and the poor player
> > has to carry around a golfbag and switch all the time.
>
> I'd argue this is exactlyl the right approach to take - virtual golf
> bag notwithstanding.You should be encouragingt the player to consider
> if the weapon is right for the job. This is a roguelike after alll...
>
I agree. Why not make each weapon good for a particular playing
style, rather then good against a certain enemy? For example, here's
something I've been toying with. There are different types of of
weapons, and each will allow you to use different specific techniques
as you become more skilled with them. Each weapon has a certain
playing style that it panders to.
Stealth weapons
-daggers, knives, etc.
-intended for a "sneak in, stab, sneak out" style of play
-techniques about getting increasing critical hits with either more
attacks or more accuracy (it's about actually hitting, so if you put
poison on, good deal)
-automatically reduce the chance of armor protecting the monster by
the player's skill level
Thrusting weapons:
-spears, halberds
-not sure about this yet...maybe harder to parry or something?
Swung weapons:
-swords, axes, hammers
-intended for the "hold arrow key to kill monsters" style of play
-techniques about maxxing out damage
-reduce the opponent's armor by the player's skill level
Flexible weapons:
-whips, chains, flails
-intended for "you're in my way, now you're not" style of play
-techniques about disabling opponents
-reduce the opponent's evade chance by the player's skill level
Unarmed:
-martial arts stuff
-intended for people who can't be bothered to deal with cursed and
breaking weapons
-techniques are about non-lethal attacks
I originally had a system with unarmed, swords/daggers, maces/hammers,
chains/flails, polearms/staves, and axes, but then realized something:
the only difference, as it was, is player preference. Each group of
weapons would have the same range of 1d4, 1d8, 2d5, etc.
damages...really, there was nothing making them truly different. So I
dunno, I'll toy with this a bit and see what happens, but I definitely
like the idea.
--
Gamer_2k4
DaveB
> Thrusting weapons:
> -spears, halberds
> -not sure about this yet...maybe harder to parry or something?
Spears & polearms were designed for reach and defence - and have been used
effectively for this in the past. Basically a foe with a shorter weapon
(sword, axe, etc) will find that the spear wielder will get to attack first
if they try to close.
This leaves two possibilities:
+ If it doesn't throw balance too much, how about these been able to reach
an extra hex
+ Give the wielder a free attack when an enemy moves into a hex/square next
to the wielder.
I prefer the latter - it is more realistic, but it needs more intelligence
on the part of the AI (NPC with spear stays back and lets player close. If
player has spear, an "intelligent" NPC will stay back unless under attack
by another means (but then I'm of the opinion that "intelligent" foes won't
close anyway 'cause that allows the player the first attack).
I Own The Letter O
To balance the spear/polearm extra square of reach issue you can give
it a speed penalty against different foes, or the user evasion/defence
penalty against adjacent foes other than the last one attacked. This
would (I believe) accurately represent the fact that once used for a
slightly longer ranged thrust or set against a charge the weapon is
difficulty to manouever to strike/defend against an enemy on your
flank or rear. There could even be a pike type weapon with greater
reach but greater penalties. It would be great in a corridor though
(as long as nothing sneaked up behind you, you could even take the
walls into account and rule that the pike cannot be turned to face the
rear if you wanted to be evil and complicated).
jot...@hotmail.com
> + If it doesn't throw balance too much, how about these been able to reach
> an extra hex
> + Give the wielder a free attack when an enemy moves into a hex/square next
> to the wielder.
Aren't they about the same thing? Reaching an extra hex/square gives
you a free "first strike", and after that the enemy closes in to be
able to attack you. There's another free attack if he flees, which
makes some sense with a spear. Also, if the enemy also has a spear,
this bonus is effectively negated! In conclusion, modeling a weapon
with extra reach with *actual extra reach* makes some sense :)
This advantage can be counter-balanced with reduced weapon speed,
because it's less wieldy. A more complicated but more accurate penalty
would be if the damage decreased when moving the weapon too much from
target to target (radially from the player). Switching from an enemy
to the NW to another in the SW implies moving the spear 2 squares, so
there would be a 2*X penalty.
It's also understood that the spear is a defense weapon. It's supposed
to keep enemies out of reach, but usually this is overlooked. I
remember that in Musashi's ramblings he suggested assigning it a
defense bonus. A slightly more complex rule would be if an enemy tries
to get inside the spear range (right next to the defender), it has to
score a roll to outmaneuver the spear, otherwise it can't get in.
It would be so cool to take part in a battle with organized lines of
spearmen, they would stand as nearly impenetrable walls except at the
flanks, and the other army would take great casualties just trying to
get within range and break apart the formation :)
On 10 Out, 12:45, I Own The Letter O <lord_h...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> To balance the spear/polearm extra square of reach issue you can give
> it a speed penalty against different foes, or the user evasion/defence
> penalty against adjacent foes other than the last one attacked. This
> would (I believe) accurately represent the fact that once used for a
> slightly longer ranged thrust or set against a charge the weapon is
> difficulty to manouever to strike/defend against an enemy on your
> flank or rear.
This would be a good and simpler alternative to the target switching
penalty. I like the other one better, because when fighting multiple
enemies it would be a better strategy to get them all on the same
side, instead of them being on opposing sides.
Summing it up, the simplest possible spear would have:
* Actual extra reach of 1 square.
* Reduced speed.
* Defense bonus.
This would already give the player some interesting strategic
decisions. The best one IMO would have:
* The same extra reach of 1 square.
* Damage penalty when switching targets (either proportional to the
distance traveled by the spear, or a simple fixed penalty when
switching targets as suggested by I Own The Letter O).
* Moving inside a spear-bearer's inner range to attack it needs an
extra roll so it acts as a defense.
Jotaf
David Damerell
>It's also understood that the spear is a defense weapon. It's supposed
>to keep enemies out of reach, but usually this is overlooked.
I think the real problem is that long spears are a bad fit with the
typical roguelike mechanic where a single player tackles multiple
opponents and all parties concerned can sustain multiple hits.
At best, you might do something with bands of monsters using long spears
in concert - the player could either take the hits, or try to outmaneuver
the block.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Distortion Field!
Today is First Olethros, October - a weekend.
jot...@hotmail.com
wrote:
> Quoting <jota...@hotmail.com>:
>
> >It's also understood that the spear is a defense weapon. It's supposed
> >to keep enemies out of reach, but usually this is overlooked.
>
> I think the real problem is that long spears are a bad fit with the
> typical roguelike mechanic where a single player tackles multiple
> opponents and all parties concerned can sustain multiple hits.
>
> At best, you might do something with bands of monsters using long spears
> in concert - the player could either take the hits, or try to outmaneuver
> the block.
> --
> Today is First Olethros, October - a weekend.
The best implementation would probably put it in the hands of the
player and also in the hands of enemies, yes. Fighting off a group
like that would be fun, since it would reveal the weapon's full
potential. However, the player as a solo fighter can't use the same
tactic.
But in a game where enemies have spears like this, the spear *would*
indeed prove useful -- with it, you nullify your enemies' advantage of
reach (and fight on an even standing); without it, you'd have to
attack the flanks or charge it and pray that you don't get impaled.
(with the spear's extra reach, they would get a free attack while you
move in.)
Jotaf
Jeff Lait
> On 16 Out, 14:31, David Damerell <damer...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
> wrote:
> > At best, you might do something with bands of monsters using long spears
> > in concert - the player could either take the hits, or try to outmaneuver
> > the block.
>
> player and also in the hands of enemies, yes. Fighting off a group
> like that would be fun, since it would reveal the weapon's full
> potential. However, the player as a solo fighter can't use the same
> tactic.
>
> But in a game where enemies have spears like this, the spear *would*
> indeed prove useful -- with it, you nullify your enemies' advantage of
> reach (and fight on an even standing); without it, you'd have to
> attack the flanks or charge it and pray that you don't get impaled.
> (with the spear's extra reach, they would get a free attack while you
> move in.)
Depends on the UI. Nethack has "reach" with the polearms. But you
have to 'a'pply them and then target each attack. Since this is
approximately infinite more work than just bumping into the foe with
your sword, you can guess how most players end up.
Monster AI doesn't have to pay this UI cost so certainly is easier to
setup.
Anyone have any good ideas of the sort of UI that would make attacking
2 squares away with a melee weapon as easy and friendly as attacking
adjacent foes? Sometimes I think roguelikes are victims of their own
success with bump-to-attack. Since it works so smoothly, anything
that breaks that flow is lost. This is one reason why I like fighters
to not have to explicitly apply skills - the "fighter" playstyle is a
bump-to-kill one.
--
Jeff Lait
(POWDER: http://www.zincland.com/powder)
Pointless
...
> Anyone have any good ideas of the sort of UI that would make attacking
> 2 squares away with a melee weapon as easy and friendly as attacking
> adjacent foes? Sometimes I think roguelikes are victims of their own
> success with bump-to-attack. Since it works so smoothly, anything
> that breaks that flow is lost. This is one reason why I like fighters
> to not have to explicitly apply skills - the "fighter" playstyle is a
> bump-to-kill one.
Hmmm how about a keypress for attack, instead of "bumping"? Pressing
the "a" or "f" key attacks whatever is targeted. For ease of use,
bumping into a baddie targets and attacks. For using polearms, the
player has to use tab to find the nearest target, or use the "x" or
"l" command to bring up a look interface and select the target.
Highlighting the target would be essential.
Gelatinous Mutant Coconut
> the "a" or "f" key attacks whatever is targeted. For ease of use,
> bumping into a baddie targets and attacks. For using polearms, the
> player has to use tab to find the nearest target, or use the "x" or
> "l" command to bring up a look interface and select the target.
> Highlighting the target would be essential.
That still carries the UI penalty of making bump-to-attack much easier
on the player, resulting in polearms being considered more trouble
than they are worth except when tactics demand their use.
How about if bumping a creature causes targeting, but DOESN'T cause an
attack? You would need to press a specific button to attack your
target; 'a' maybe. You would want to make your weaker enemies slightly
tougher maybe, so that steam-rolling is less about bumping an entire
corridor of enemies until you start bumping a wall and more about
bumping an enemy and hitting 'a' until you start getting messages
saying that you need to target a new enemy to continue attacking. Then
you get a quick chance to assess the situation, or just hit 'tab' and
start holding down 'a' again; not too much additional effort compared
to 'bump to kill'.
A potentially nice side effect of going to a system like this would be
that you wouldn't have to explicitly handle "friendlies" differently
from "baddies"; bump either one to target them, then 'c'hat or
'a'ttack, with an optional warning against attacking non-hostile
creatures. Removing the link between bumping to choose your target and
the followup action also would let you give more equally-weighted (in
terms of UI effort required) options; 'a'ttack could be the default
attack for the weapon you are wielding, but the player could also
choose explicitly a side-swing ('s'), downward-strike ('d') or forward-
thrust ('f'), for example. The effect of each of those could depend on
the weapon wielded, so a forward-thrust with a spear could strike at a
distance, a side-swing with a sword could hit multiple adjacent
enemies, and so forth.
(I'll have to think about what keys make sense; 'd' is already pretty
well established as 'd'rop, and I just defined 'c' as 'c'hat and not
'c'hop. The principle seems sound, though.)
Andrew Doull
Is there any problem with automatically bump attacking at range?
...x
.@.x
...x
e.g. when the @ is moving right, he automatically bump attacks instead
of moving any target in one of the x zones?
Andrew
Billy Bissette
news:7e12ba33-bcec-409f...@w1g2000prk.googlegroups.com:
>> On Oct 20, 4:48 pm, jota...@hotmail.com wrote:
>> Anyone have any good ideas of the sort of UI that would make
>> attacking 2 squares away with a melee weapon as easy and friendly as
>> attacking adjacent foes? Sometimes I think roguelikes are victims of
>> their own success with bump-to-attack. Since it works so smoothly,
>> anything that breaks that flow is lost. This is one reason why I
>> like fighters to not have to explicitly apply skills - the "fighter"
>> playstyle is a bump-to-kill one.
>
> Is there any problem with automatically bump attacking at range?
>
> ...x
> .@.x
> ...x
>
> e.g. when the @ is moving right, he automatically bump attacks instead
> of moving any target in one of the x zones?
There may be many cases where the player just wants to move into
an empty space that is adjacent to a monster, rather than standing in
place to do an attack.
For example, if you want to escape past a monster. Maybe stairs are
next to it, or a doorway, or a hallway, or you just have a horde hot
on your heels behind you.
Or you may just want to ignore nearby creatures in order to deal
with more dangerous creatures that are further away. Or perhaps
reaching an object on the ground next to a monster is more important.
And how will the game decide which creature to attack, anyway?
Counting diagonals, there are 16 squares that are two spaces away
from the player, but only eight direction keys to choose from.
Even in your own example, you assign three space to "attack right".
If more than one of those spaces is occupied, then to which is the
attack launched? And what if the player wants to attack one of
the other spaces instead?
Gelatinous Mutant Coconut
>
> ...x
> .@.x
> ...x
>
> e.g. when the @ is moving right, he automatically bump attacks instead
> of moving any target in one of the x zones?
There should be a way for the player to actually make that move if
they want.
I would be fine with something like "hold shift while pressing a
movement key", but if you do that you can't easily support number pad
movement or arrow key movement in a portable fashion if you are using
curses. (I believe someone came up with some nasty set of machine-
dependent code that mostly got it to work, but it still would fail if
you try to play over telnet.)
I also don't like bumping those three at a distance because the player
doesn't have any control over which of the three get enemies gets
attacked.
Billy Bissette
news:c0835afd-55b5-41f7...@64g2000hsm.googlegroups.com:
Some kind of auto-target attack key? Press the (non-directional)
attack key, and you attack the nearest appropriate enemy. Or the player
can manual target to lock onto a specific creature or space. (If you
want to encourage player laziness, then also have the game move the
player towards the target creature if it is out of range. Then people
can just hold the attack key to clear an area. :p )
Unfortunately, such a basic scheme doesn't work well with the scales
Roguelikes use for distance and time. Nor do Roguelikes handle facing
well, which can be a big assist in autotargeting. (Many creatures are
the exact same difference from the player. And unlike action games,
the time scale is such that the player cannot afford to shift
themselves around until the game targets the right creature.)
Radomir Dopieralski
> Andrew Doull <andre...@gmail.com> wrote in
> news:7e12ba33-bcec-409f...@w1g2000prk.googlegroups.com:
>> On Oct 21, 11:39 am, Jeff Lait <torespondisfut...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Oct 20, 4:48 pm, jota...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
>>> Anyone have any good ideas of the sort of UI that would make
>>> attacking 2 squares away with a melee weapon as easy and friendly as
>>> attacking adjacent foes? Sometimes I think roguelikes are victims of
>>> their own success with bump-to-attack. Since it works so smoothly,
>>> anything that breaks that flow is lost. This is one reason why I
>>> like fighters to not have to explicitly apply skills - the "fighter"
>>> playstyle is a bump-to-kill one.
>>
>> Is there any problem with automatically bump attacking at range?
>>
>> ...x
>> .@.x
>> ...x
>>
>> e.g. when the @ is moving right, he automatically bump attacks instead
>> of moving any target in one of the x zones?
>
> There may be many cases where the player just wants to move into
> an empty space that is adjacent to a monster, rather than standing in
> place to do an attack.
Well, even Rogue has "m"ove command, that prompts for direction and
makes your character just move, without picking anything up or attacking.
Since you'd need it rarely, it's ok to have such a clumsy UI for it.
--
Radomir Dopieralski, http://sheep.art.pl
Radomir Dopieralski
> Sometimes I think roguelikes are victims of their own
> success with bump-to-attack. Since it works so smoothly, anything
> that breaks that flow is lost. This is one reason why I like fighters
> to not have to explicitly apply skills - the "fighter" playstyle is a
> bump-to-kill one.
The roguelikes made by Chunsoft (Furai no Shinren, Pokemon Dungeon,
Dragon Quest) all use the A button for attacking. But they are graphical
so you have facing. You can also rotate your character without losing
a turn by holding down Start and your character automatically faces the
last monster that attacked it, so it's all realtively smooth.
Billy Bissette
news:slrngfqut...@atos.wmid.amu.edu.pl:
> At Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:48:45 -0500, Billy Bissette wrote:
>
>> Andrew Doull <andre...@gmail.com> wrote in
>> news:7e12ba33-bcec-409f-8d9a-
277a32...@w1g2000prk.googlegroups.com:
How often you need it will really depend upon the game.
Billy Bissette
You also only have to attack most creatures a few times to kill them.
You don't have to deal with monsther AI, as monsters are so
predictable that dealing with a group can feel more like a puzzle
game. It isn't uncommon to be facing the right direction when you
do close with a target (or let a target close with you). Corridors
make this even more common.
And when you are surrounded, you very likely have a serious problem
that requires something other than a basic attack to survive.
Furthermore, any attacks at a distance are performable only in
the eight basic directions. No fancy targeting.
(NOTE: They do assign the bow to a button, just like attack is
assigned. Well, technically you assign a specific stack of arrows
to the "Fire" button.)
Derek Ray
> Anyone have any good ideas of the sort of UI that would make attacking
> 2 squares away with a melee weapon as easy and friendly as attacking
> adjacent foes?
Sporkhack will remember your target; when you come back and a)pply the
polearm again, you will automatically target the last monster you hit
previously if he's still alive and in your sight.
The biggest problem I see here is that one still has to remember to
a)pply the w)eapon and then "confirm" -- and creating a separate key for
"Strike with wielded polearm" just makes the interface more complex for
no real appreciable benefit.
--
Derek
Game info and change log: http://sporkhack.com
Beta Server: telnet://sporkhack.com
IRC: irc.freenode.net, #sporkhack
jot...@hotmail.com
wrote:
> The biggest problem I see here is that one still has to remember to
> a)pply the w)eapon and then "confirm" -- and creating a separate key for
> "Strike with wielded polearm" just makes the interface more complex for
> no real appreciable benefit.
How about this. I assigned D's to the targets of diagonal numpad keys,
and S's to the targets of straight (up/down/left/right) numpad keys:
.......
..DSD..
.D...D.
.S.@.S.
.D...D.
..DSD..
.......
No, those are not Dragons and Snakes :P
As you can see, the only ambiguity is that a diagonal key can have 2
possible targets (monsters occupying those two D's). Other than that,
the behavior is as expected -- attack the enemy in that direction or
move in that direction.
I was thinking that when you press a diagonal key and there is
ambiguity (two enemies in that direction) it doesn't immediately
attack -- it just changes the background color of one of the monsters
to show a targeting highlight. You then press an easy key like \, Ctrl
or something to switch between the two possible positions, if it isn't
already the one you want. Bump into them again and you attack.
I think this should be easy enough to understand and use. Two enemies
in the same (diagonal) direction should be a relatively rare event,
and there's the visual cue to show which monster the player is
attacking. It should be intuitive enough that there's a key to choose
between those two targets.
Jotaf
Derek Ray
> On 21 Out, 13:33, Derek Ray <de...@moot.its.only.a.spamtrap.org>
>> a)pply the w)eapon and then "confirm" -- and creating a separate key for
>> "Strike with wielded polearm" just makes the interface more complex for
>> no real appreciable benefit.
> How about this.
> As you can see, the only ambiguity is that a diagonal key can have 2
> possible targets (monsters occupying those two D's). Other than that,
> the behavior is as expected -- attack the enemy in that direction or
> move in that direction.
>
> I was thinking that when you press a diagonal key and there is
> ambiguity (two enemies in that direction) it doesn't immediately
> attack -- it just changes the background color of one of the monsters
> to show a targeting highlight. You then press an easy key like \, Ctrl
> or something to switch between the two possible positions, if it isn't
> already the one you want. Bump into them again and you attack.
>
> I think this should be easy enough to understand and use.
You know, the bit where I said "making the interface more complex"... I
wasn't kidding. This sort of elaborate scheme that interferes with the
actual base movement of the game (as others have posted, what if you
just want to run past monsters?) is the sort of thing that solves one
problem at the expense of creating many others.
> Two enemies
> in the same (diagonal) direction should be a relatively rare event,
It is very common in Nethack and Crawl, and to some degree POWDER.
> and there's the visual cue to show which monster the player is
> attacking. It should be intuitive enough that there's a key to choose
> between those two targets.
The above scheme strikes me as completely unintuitive for anyone except
experienced roguelike players, and as annoying to them.
Gelatinous Mutant Coconut
> ..DSD..
> .D...D.
> .S.@.S.
> .D...D.
> ..DSD..
> .......
You could make everything only require two keys if you limit attacks
to eight directions, just like regular movement:
.......
.D.S.D.
.......
.S.@.S.
.......
.D.S.D.
.......
You could then have 'f'ire, 't'hrow or 'x'tend (or whatever your key
for "use polearm" is) followed by a simple directional key. You could
similarly have 'a'ttack followed by a direction cause an attack
against one of the eight squares adjacent to you, even if there isn't
something you would normally bump to attack. (More sensible than
'a'pplying an axe to a door like in Nethack, in my opinion.)
Of course, if it bothers you that monsters (and players, if monsters
are similarly limited) could use the gaps in the areas threatened to
close in safely despite having no other cover, you probably wouldn't
want to go down this route. That said, it would really only be an
issue when your character is in an open room, making corridors even
more valuable. (Which may or may not be something you want to
encourage.)
jot...@hotmail.com
wrote:
> You know, the bit where I said "making the interface more complex"... I
> wasn't kidding. This sort of elaborate scheme that interferes with the
> one problem at the expense of creating many others.
Actually the same game can also have swords. Polearms have their own
strategy set and rules of play so in this context they can be
considered an advanced set of mechanics to master. There are bows too,
but you don't have to use bows all of the time.
There's this other thread about the player learning and mastering
completely new techniques as he goes through a game, and I couldn't
agree more. We need more of this.
> (as others have posted, what if you just want to run past monsters?)
I find it hard to believe that you want to run past monsters by going
*towards* them, but this is easy enough to fix with Ctrl+Direction or X
+Direction meaning "move without attacking". Now don't tell me that
this isn't a rare event. You usually run away from monsters in a
direction that doesn't *have* monsters, so no unintentional attacks.
About steam-rolling opponents:
If you look carefully at the original rule set you'll see that it
happens naturally with no additional keypresses, even in diagonal
directions. That's my favorite thing about the proposed system.
On 21 Out, Gelatinous Mutant Coconut wrote:
> You could make everything only require two keys if you limit attacks
> to eight directions, just like regular movement:
>
> .......
> .D.S.D.
> .......
> .S.@.S.
> .......
> .D.S.D.
> .......
That somehow doesn't make me feel safe :) You do have a point about
pressing a special key to extend the polearm and attack those places.
It completely precludes steamrolling though. Unless it's a toggle
between "extended" and "retracted" polearm. Which would be pretty
cool.
Jotaf
Gelatinous Mutant Coconut
> > .D.S.D.
> > .......
> > .S.@.S.
> > .......
> > .D.S.D.
> > .......
>
> That somehow doesn't make me feel safe :) You do have a point about
> pressing a special key to extend the polearm and attack those places.
> It completely precludes steamrolling though. Unless it's a toggle
> between "extended" and "retracted" polearm. Which would be pretty
> cool.
I was thinking that, if something was in the way, you would hit it
instead. (Except perhaps if you MISS that thing in between, in which
case you can hit the thing behind it. Or you could skewer the first
one and hit the second one on a critical hit.)
What I meant by having a key press followed by a direction was to make
everything uniform in how it was done; that is, the mechanics of
firing a bow or throwing a potion or jabbing with a spear is the same,
it just uses a different key to access.
Actually, if you were okay with giving up the idea that something
needs to physically be wielded in one of your two hand slots in order
for it to be used (which is already true of zapping wands, reading
scrolls and throwing things in Nethack, and several games already have
ammo and ranged slots separate from melee slots), you could easily
give players a "Near Melee" slot, a "Far Melee" slot, and a "Ranged
Weapon" slot, rather than having them go through their inventory to
swap each time. Then they could press a button and access whichever
attack they want, with less time spent rustling through their bags.
(Aside from polearms, Far Melee items could include whips, spikey
balls on chains, long red carpets (need to be rolled back up after
use), and any number of other less sensible weapons.)
Martin Read
>I find it hard to believe that you want to run past monsters by going
>*towards* them, but this is easy enough to fix with Ctrl+Direction or X
>+Direction meaning "move without attacking". Now don't tell me that
>this isn't a rare event. You usually run away from monsters in a
>direction that doesn't *have* monsters, so no unintentional attacks.
I run away from monsters in the direction that looks like it has space
to run away *to*. This may, or may not, mean running past a monster.
When I am concentrating on running away, I don't want to have to piss
about with modifier chords, especially since the *usual* meaning of
modifier chords of the movement keys in a roguelike is either "interact
with this square without entering it" or "move in this direction until
something interesting or dangerous happens or you can no longer move in
this direction".
--
\_\/_/ turbulence is certainty turbulence is friction between you and me
\ / every time we try to impose order we create chaos
\/ -- Killing Joke, "Mathematics of Chaos"
Gamer_2k4
> Summing it up, the simplest possible spear would have:
> * Actual extra reach of 1 square.
> * Reduced speed.
> * Defense bonus.
>
> This would already give the player some interesting strategic
> decisions. The best one IMO would have:
> * The same extra reach of 1 square.
> * Damage penalty when switching targets (either proportional to the
> distance traveled by the spear, or a simple fixed penalty when
> switching targets as suggested by I Own The Letter O).
> * Moving inside a spear-bearer's inner range to attack it needs an
> extra roll so it acts as a defense.
>
> Jotaf
Alright, I think I have it figured out.
Thrusting weapons:
-spears, halberds
-techniques about improving defense
-gives a second chance to parry with [skill level] percent of the
first chance
-higher penalty when attacking someone you're not facing
Also, flexible weapons have been modified (conceptually) to have no
penalties when attacking monsters that you aren't facing. Facing will
be implemented in a way similar to this article:
http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Implicit_Facing
--
Gamer_2k4
Brendan Guild
@w39g2000prb.googlegroups.com>, GelatinousMutantCoconut says...
> How about if bumping a creature causes targeting, but DOESN'T cause an
> attack? You would need to press a specific button to attack your
> target; 'a' maybe. You would want to make your weaker enemies slightly
> tougher maybe, so that steam-rolling is less about bumping an entire
> corridor of enemies until you start bumping a wall and more about
> bumping an enemy and hitting 'a' until you start getting messages
> saying that you need to target a new enemy to continue attacking.
This raises the possibility of having a targeting system that
automatically chooses targets. So when your currently targeted enemy is
killed, you wouldn't have to manually choose a new target unless you
dislike the automatic target. You could clear an entire room by leaning
on the 'a' key.
That would make UI for ranged fighting even easier to use that the UI
for melee. With melee you'd have to press keys to make yourself adjacent
to a monster before you could press 'a' to kill it, but with a bow you
could just press 'a'.
Another interesting effect is that melee attacks would not be any more
complicated because of the targeting system. Instead of bumping to
attack, you'd just move next to an enemy and press 'a' to attack. You
would be automatically targeting the only enemy in range, so bumping to
target wouldn't even be necessary.
This sounds great, but it has the weakness of requiring two cursors, one
for the hero and one for targeting. As long as you like the automatic
target, there is no problem, but as soon as you have to choose a target
the focus shifts from controlling your @ to controlling your targeting
cursor somehow. This hurts immersion and it is probably going to be
tedious.
Using tab to target is certainly unacceptable. I doubt many players want
to press tab a random number of times to find the enemy they want to
target. If it were somehow obvious exactly how many times you have to
press tab to get a certain enemy, that would be better but still tedious
when there are more than a few enemies around.
The only targeting system that is free of these problems is one where
you can only target the closest enemy in each of the 8 directions. Being
able to target any enemy that you can see is probably impractical.
Billy Bissette
@shawnews.vc.shawcable.net:
Wanting to manually target someone adjacent is solved by keeping
either bump-to-attack, and at least mitigated by implementing
bump-to-target. Bump-to-attack has the advantage of one-key
response while bump-to-target may be more convenient or consistent
if you have different kinds of selectable attacks. Either prevent
the need to tab through enemies to select your target.
Manual targeting at a distance is already done in some games by
tabbing through enemies, generally after going into targeting mode.
You do something to enter target mode, then select target, then
execute your command. If you implement a constant targeting system,
then you could dedicate tab to that function and remove the "enter
target mode" step. Dependent upon game design though, you might
still benefit from a specific target mode, as tab selecting doesn't
easily adapt to targeting an empty space or wall (which you might
want to do for area effect spells or stone-to-mud spells.)
Implied facing can give more sense to just what you will target
next. Whenever you move or attack, your implied facing is updated
to that direction. If you have multiple enemies at the same
distance from you, you will auto-target the one closest to your
implied facing, and that will become your new facing. In this
situation, bump-to-target could be implemented as only updating
your implied facing rather than marking a specific foe. Implied
facing still leaves the question of who to hit when you have
enemies to both sides (For example, you face right. No enemy is
right, but one is adjacent up-right and one is adjacent down-right.
Which do you auto-target?) As long as the solution is consistent,
it is probably okay though. Maybe right-handed characters target
clockwise and left-handed target counter clockwise. It doesn't
really matter as long as the player knows which it will default
to.
The problem introduced here is keeping focus on a specific single
target while it either moves or you do. Auto-target by nature will
probably want to keep updating, rather than lock to a single foe.
So you may also want a method to lock targeting, for when you want
to focus only on a single target for multiple turns. Which means
you'll need a key to toggle target locking.
As for autotarget making room clearing easier for ranged
characters than melee, you could (as I mentioned in another post)
go as far as to make an "attack" key instead move a melee character
towards its target if its target is out of range for the attack.
Ray Dillinger
> The problem introduced here is keeping focus on a specific single
> target while it either moves or you do. Auto-target by nature will
> probably want to keep updating, rather than lock to a single foe.
> So you may also want a method to lock targeting, for when you want
> to focus only on a single target for multiple turns. Which means
> you'll need a key to toggle target locking.
No, the locking-on should automatically be persistent. Here's how I
see the interaction working....
Tab: If the previous keypress caused a target to be selected,
and the selected target is not the most distant possible target,
changes selection to next target further away. Otherwise selects
nearest possible target.
Shift-Tab: (reverse tab) If the previous keypress caused
a target to be selected, and the selected target is not the
nearest possible target, changes selection to next target
nearer. Otherwise selects most distant possible target.
F (fire command): If there is a currently selected target, shoots
ranged weapon at it. If there is no selected target, selects and
fires at nearest target.
Targets are automatically deselected if they get killed, move out
of range, or if you can't see them anymore. This results in having
no target selected.
No need for a special key to lock onto a target; it's fine as
default behavior. No need for a special key to disengage a target
either; just use tab and shift-tab to select a new one.
Bear
Radomir Dopieralski
Z-Day does exactly that. Except that it selects the nearest target
as soon as it comes into the view, not when 'fire' is pressed, but
that's a detail.
jot...@hotmail.com
> Using tab to target is certainly unacceptable. I doubt many players want
> to press tab a random number of times to find the enemy they want to
> target.
That's my only complaint about targeting systems. But I think it can
be resolved by selecting radially with 2 keys, which could be pretty
intuitive: choose next target "more to the left" or "more to the
right" (from the @'s point of view). Like, next target clock-wise or C-
CW.
With 2 enemies it would be a simple toggle, but with 3 or 4 it would
already start showing massive improvements over the common interface.
Now, limit selection to targets which you have direct LOS to, and it's
even better: you won't need to target enemy A whose LOS is blocked by
enemy B, not directly anyway, since the only options (attack or fire)
would already be stopped by enemy A. Further enemies (whose LOS is
blocked by nearer enemies) are out, and this limits our search
immensely.
Jotaf
Brendan Guild
It is an important detail! It would be a serious problem if the player
did not always know which enemy he was going to attack, so targeting
really needs to happen before the player presses the attack key. Any
player who agrees with that would be forced to always use manual
targeting if the autotargeting only happens when 'fire' is pressed.
I am shocked that so many developers seem to accept tab-targeting so
easily. To me it seems horrible. I want ranged attacks that can target
any visible enemy too, but I want a targeting system where the player
can target with a few keypresses and undoubtedly know which target he is
choosing before pressing the keys.
In a smooth UI, the player always knows what to expect from every
keypress. In a tab-targeting UI it will never be clear what 'tab' will
do, you just have to press it and watch the result, then press it
repeatedly until you get the result you want. Even if you make rules
like nearest to farthest and clockwise, the player would be required to
perform geometric calculations just to figure out which monster would be
selected next.
So I propose an alternative. First we use automatic targeting that is as
smart as possible. It always chooses the best target as soon as a target
is available, but it keeps locked onto that target until it disappears
or the player chooses another target. Choose a key for entering
targeting mode. Next, notice that enemies are almost universally
represented by letters, so let the letter of the enemy be the key that
targets that enemy when in targeting mode.
Often there is more than one enemy of the same letter in view. This is a
problem for more than just my targeting scheme because it causes the
player to become confused about which enemy is which, especially in
messages and when the two enemies are close together on the map.
Therefore, I suggest number the enemies by putting actual numerals
beside them on the map and next to their names in messages. Hopefully 1
through 9 would be enough numbers.
Then if you are in a room with both a gridbug (represented by 'x1') and
a dragon (represented by 'D1') and the autotarget has your weapon aimed
at the gridbug, you could target the dragon by pressing 't' to enter
targeting mode, 'd' for the dragon, '1' to indicate which dragon you
want, then you'd automatically leave targeting mode.
I think most variations on this system are much better than repeatedly
pressing tab to find your target.
Gelatinous Mutant Coconut
> smart as possible. It always chooses the best target as soon as a target
> is available, but it keeps locked onto that target until it disappears
> or the player chooses another target. Choose a key for entering
> targeting mode. Next, notice that enemies are almost universally
> represented by letters, so let the letter of the enemy be the key that
> targets that enemy when in targeting mode.
I really like this, especially because it can be extended naturally to
items and other dungeon features as well, so that if I want to, say,
target a potion (to shatter it before that orc grabs it and drinks it,
for example), I could target it with (target key) -> '!'.
> Often there is more than one enemy of the same letter in view. This is a
> problem for more than just my targeting scheme because it causes the
> player to become confused about which enemy is which, especially in
> messages and when the two enemies are close together on the map.
> Therefore, I suggest number the enemies by putting actual numerals
> beside them on the map and next to their names in messages. Hopefully 1
> through 9 would be enough numbers.
I am less fond of this idea. First off, when there is only one monster
of a certain type visible, it isn't immediately clear to the player if
they need to type "<target> 'D' 1", or if "<target> 'D'" is enough to
take them out targetting mode, where pressing '1' would cause them to
move southwest. I would be tempted to make exiting targetting mode
explicit, so that <target> enters targetting mode, pressing 'D'
targets the nearest dragon, pressing 'D' again targets the next
closest dragon, and so on until the player hits <enter> and leaves
targetting mode. While this is similar to the tab targetting method,
in practice as long as you don't make a habit of sending nothing but
fifty identical orcs at the player (I'm looking at you, NetHack), even
in large groups the diversity of enemy character representations
should keep the search time for the player's target relatively low. (I
would suggest that the game never send more than four monsters with
the same character representation at the player at the same time;
diversity makes fights interesting, anyways.)
Radomir Dopieralski
> In article <slrnggmfl...@atos.wmid.amu.edu.pl>, Radomir
> Dopieralski wrote:
>> At Fri, 31 Oct 2008 09:28:26 -0700, Ray Dillinger wrote:
>> > No need for a special key to lock onto a target; it's fine as
>> > default behavior. No need for a special key to disengage a target
>> > either; just use tab and shift-tab to select a new one.
>>
>> Z-Day does exactly that. Except that it selects the nearest target
>> as soon as it comes into the view, not when 'fire' is pressed, but
>> that's a detail.
>
> It is an important detail! It would be a serious problem if the player
> did not always know which enemy he was going to attack, so targeting
> really needs to happen before the player presses the attack key. Any
> player who agrees with that would be forced to always use manual
> targeting if the autotargeting only happens when 'fire' is pressed.
>
> I am shocked that so many developers seem to accept tab-targeting so
> easily. To me it seems horrible. I want ranged attacks that can target
> any visible enemy too, but I want a targeting system where the player
> can target with a few keypresses and undoubtedly know which target he is
> choosing before pressing the keys.
Well, it works good for z-day mostly because all enemies are essentially
identical -- the only thing that differs is their positions. There is no
reason why you would ever want to target anything other than the closest
zombie. Except for maybe when you intend to run in specific direction --
then you want to attack the nearest zombie in that direction, but that's
all.
Manual targetting is very rare -- so rare that simple tabbing is enough,
especially when all the interesting (closest) monsters are early in the
tab sequence. Admitelly, pressing a targetting key and then direction to
select the neares monster in that direction would work even better.
Actually, I just thought of one case where you could want to target
a zombie that's farther away: when you throw a molotov coctail and want
the targetted zombie to set ablaze as many of its friends as possible.
But molotovs are exceptionally badly implemented in that game and hence
not very useful.
Billy Bissette
@shawnews.vc.shawcable.net:
> Therefore, I suggest number the enemies by putting actual numerals
> beside them on the map and next to their names in messages. Hopefully
1
> through 9 would be enough numbers.
>
> Then if you are in a room with both a gridbug (represented by 'x1')
and
> a dragon (represented by 'D1') and the autotarget has your weapon
aimed
> at the gridbug, you could target the dragon by pressing 't' to enter
> targeting mode, 'd' for the dragon, '1' to indicate which dragon you
> want, then you'd automatically leave targeting mode.
Ten numbers isn't enough for Angband-style monster counts, and may
not be enough for themed areas in other Roguelikes. You might also
want to avoid using numbers to represent monsters, which some
Roguelikes resort to.
You also need to decide what to do when a monster leaves view.
Does its number get freed for reuse, or does it keep it until
killed? (Significantly restrictive monster counts could be used so
that there was never more than 10 of a specific creature type alive
in a level. A few Roguelikes already have monster counts that are
almost that restrictive.)
You could go full-force and divorce numeric ID from monster type.
Simply number every creature you see regardless of type, and then
you could drop a key from the targeting action. Downside is that
unless you were playing a Roguelike with microscopic monster
counts, you'd need more than ten numeric IDs. You'd probably have
to go into the alphabet, and then you risk confusion over whether
a letter is a monster type or an ID number. (Which could be
countered slightly if you reversed foreground and background for
ID numbers.)
Another concern though is that if you are cutting your horizontal
map space in half with such a scheme, maybe you should reconsider
tiles? Map space versus tile size is one of tiled artwork's
biggest problems. You could even paste an ID number/character onto
each tile when displayed, so that you can still have immediate key
targeting.
jot...@hotmail.com
> Therefore, I suggest number the enemies by putting actual numerals
> beside them on the map and next to their names in messages. Hopefully 1
> through 9 would be enough numbers.
The numbers could appear only when you target that type, so you don't
need double-character monsters.
Jotaf
Billy Bissette
@u18g2000pro.googlegroups.com:
If you don't allow for double-character monsters, then what do you
do when you try to display numbers with adjacent monsters?
jot...@hotmail.com
> jota...@hotmail.com wrote in news:f453c960-a838-4672-8c3c-a16a5ad4d6f9
Okay, that was obviously not clear enough. What I meant was that
monsters would be single-character as usual, you press 'T'arget,
'O'rc, and then all the O's on the screen would be replaced with
different numbers so you can select one. You can choose Orc #1, #2 or
#3!
Jotaf