I''m wondering about an idea that I''m stea-- erm... "borrowing without asking" from another game... Let''s say you''ve got different classes of entities in a game world: Machine, and Biological, for example. In the game world, there are weapons that do greater than their listed damage to certain classes. For instance, you''ve got a gun that does 100 points most entities, but +40% damage to Machines. Or, one that does -25% to Machines. First question: How appealing is it to have a wide variety of weapons and even devices that are variated by these percentages? I''m seeing any given weapon or device having up to three such attributes. Players might encounter, for instance, the exact same weapon; but it might affect different entities differently. Upside: There''d be lots of different devices and weapons in the game. Players would anticipate discovering cool items with great percentages. Downside: Players might be annoyed by having to wade through the detail, depending on the number of weapons and types of entities. Second Question: How many entities / percentage types is too many? Right now, I''m thinking about twenty. That means that you''d do general effects to 17 classes, and maybe 1-3 special percentage effects to the rest. Thoughts? -------------------- Just waiting for the mothership...

Ok, first off its a great idea. Its basically just like the idea that fire does more to the undead than others, etc. I have played games with many many weapons(probably close to 100 weapons). They seperated weapons by 2 things mainly(they had categories, but)... One was money, the other was experience. You get were that is going, here is another thing they did: They had two categories for guns in general, Shell and Energy. Energy was used to power your suit(less energy, less defense) and do anything else that isn''t firing a shell weapon. You didn''t have to buy ammo for an energy weapon, and they usually did more damage. Shell weapons left you with a limited ammo supply, more energy for defense, and splash damage(from explosions). Out of 100 weapons, I never had more than 3, usually I had two. As all of the classes the game had(some classes had restricted gun usage), I always had at least two weapons, but never more than three. I kept one energy, and one shell. All other items were defense. I mainly rely on my skill to keep my alive and using only two weapons cuts down on my thinking time(I don''t have to sit there and think of which one to use on which person, during every situation, and try to take their class into consideration). Sure, lots of people just fire, but personally I like to keep my reaction time fast. In short, I would probably run with two weapons in your game, unless you had the "Super Perfect" way to organize and use these weapons, which I don''t think you do. Btw, on that game some people carried upwards of 6-8 guns. Prepared for all situations, but sometimes a little slower than others(it counted weight and calculated speed, but you had lots of freedom).

Summary: To actually answer the question, I think 20 is fine. I would try to kill something with my weapon, even if I knew I was at a disadvantage to 1). Prove my skill 2). Running only means You die tired(literally, few games let you run away somewhat easily) 3). I might not know better, but if its another person I am fighting, they would be mad to be killed by an inferior weapon, and their anger makes me happy.

Question for you, what type of game are we talking about here, that might help. In an action game its interesting(I want a FPS RPG... a good one) or an rpg(which I think it would be less interesting and more part of the game)

"Practice means good, Perfect Practice means Perfect"

sounds good, but the percentages shouldn''t vary for weapons that are exactly the same otherwise. if a certain gun does +40% to machines, and -40% to biological creatures, that type of gun should always do +-40% to those. mixing it up would just confuse and annoy players.

krez is right in a way...but I can see something in which one weapon may have certain characteristics against one racial class, and another effect against others

I remember playing some RPG''s (pen and paper style) from a company called BTRC (Blackburg Tactical Research Center) that had an extremely realistic and innovative form of figuring out damage against people.

Basically, weapons had 5 class ratings, type of damage and a damage value. A Damage rating 1 was all lethal damage....every amount of damage inflicted was killing damage. This worked up to rating 5 which was purely a submission weapon, it could only incapicitate, never kill. So for example, on one end of the spectrum you have things like bullets which inflict of all their damage lethally, and on the other end, you have stun guns or tranquilizer darts. In between you have things like lead pipes (mostly crushing subduing, but can cause internal hemorraghing). The damage type was also important, as bullets imparted their damage through hydrostatic shock, while swords are cutting weapons, and lead pipes are crushing weapons. The really innovative part was that depending on where you got hit and with what kind of damage effect weapon, the damage value would create different results. For example, a bullet to the arms actually may not be that serious lethality wise, and it''s not very incapicitating either. But getting slammed in the arm with a baseball bat may actually do more "damage" in the sense that it is much more likely to cause a broken bone.

It was and still is the most detailed, realistic and innovative damage system I have ever seen in a RPG, and I have read the rules for almost every RPG made from 1985-1995, and quite a few after 1995. I think computer designers could take a lot of inspiration from this game.

So what does this have to with the thread? You can take the principles of having different damage ratings, damage effects, and damage values against and apply them to eahc weapon. For example:

Weapon A, silver sword
vs Humans: Damage Rating(1), Effect(laceration), Value(3)
vs Elves: Damage Rating(2), Effect(laceration, blunt), Value(2)
vs Undead: Rating(4), Effect(Burn,laceration), Value(5)

See how it goes? The only trick is what krez said....trying to remember what value what weapon does to what race.

i really liked the ammo in system shock 2, there was standard, armour piercing and anti personel. As you were fighting robots and monsters, it was always hard to deceide which ammo to have up the spout. It''s fun but too many different weapons/ammo can cause confusion as you try and remember which weapon/ammo is ideal

i was in a rush, so sorry if i wasn''t clear. all i meant was that if the player picks up a weapon the looks, feels, tastes, and is named the same as a weapon they were using earlier, it should have ther same bonuses as the first one too... so, if the player notices that weapon A is good against certain enemies, and worthless against others, the second weapon should be the same. allow the player to learn what weapons are good for what, without them having to wade through tons of information (except perhaps the first time they encounter a new weapon).

It makes sense that a weapon would effect different races or tokens in different ways. If this is complicated to keep track of however I think depends on the type of game.

For instance, in an RTS or RTT, this may be a bit annoying to know (depending on if the player is hard core or not) because you may be up against 3 different races or more and if your one type of weapon affects them all differently, it''s a big risk to move out with that weapon, for you may meet up with the race that the weapon has less or no effect on.

In a 2D side scrolling game however, this is a cool idea. For instance, in X2, elemental attributes affect different types of creatures differently; Water hurts Fire, Fire hurts Ice, Ice freezes Wind, and Wind carries Earth. So when your fighting against a Race like the Mekka in this game, fire attributes or weapons have little effect on them.

peace


-Sage13

Liquid Moon Team

Project X2

Thanks for the feedback so far, guys.

quote: Original post by KingRuss
Question for you, what type of game are we talking about here, that might help. In an action game its interesting(I want a FPS RPG... a good one) or an rpg(which I think it would be less interesting and more part of the game)

I''m thinking of using this with an RTS / RPG concept that''s a bit Battlezone-like. (Okay, before you say I''m nuts, lemme explain... )

The player has a group that fights with his character in formation. But he has additional squads (somewhere between 6-10) made up of N number of units that he can also control. He doesn''t micromanage every individual unit, he issues orders and settings to his squad and his squad leaders (stuff like "guard me" or "fire freely").

Like every typical cRPG, fallen enemies cough up items and the player can buy items. I''m thinking of going with a template idea for units, so that players can specify in advance what they want their units to use (before they go on a mission).

Based on the experience level of the unit, they will use the best item among their inventory versus a target / challenge, and will request different items if they need them. This could be helped by the player specifying objectives or waypoints before the mission, so that units will request items they need before they actually need them.

I envision units actually discarding underpowered items as they run across new ones. There''s even a bit of a personality response from units based on how you equip them ("you want me to do what with this?" )


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Just waiting for the mothership...

quote: Original post by Sage13
If this is complicated to keep track of however I think depends on the type of game.

For instance, in an RTS or RTT, this may be a bit annoying to know (depending on if the player is hard core or not) because you may be up against 3 different races or more and if your one type of weapon affects them all differently, it''s a big risk to move out with that weapon, for you may meet up with the race that the weapon has less or no effect on.

Right I can see this. It either may make preplanning essential (as this is an RPG/RTS); or it might just be damn annoying.

I could do a couple of things to make it less annoying.

I already want the best unit to use the best item. I might simply cut down on the sheer number of variable weapons, make most weapons generic, and then make the variable weapons more godly.

I could also try to create some kind of maximize option based on the classes. Players would select "Maximize vs. Machine" for example. In inventory and the buy screen, machine lethal weapons would come up first. When units picked up weapons, they''d favor the machine lethal ones as well. If the situation changed mid-mission, players could select "Maximize" again versus the new threat.

What do you guys think about these possibilities?






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Just waiting for the mothership...

quote: Original post by krez
all i meant was that if the player picks up a weapon the looks, feels, tastes, and is named the same as a weapon they were using earlier, it should have ther same bonuses as the first one too... so, if the player notices that weapon A is good against certain enemies, and worthless against others, the second weapon should be the same. allow the player to learn what weapons are good for what, without them having to wade through tons of information (except perhaps the first time they encounter a new weapon).

Okay, I see what you''re saying. What do you guys think about this potential example:

Cobalt Rifle
Damage: 100 Points
Machine: -20%

or

Cobalt Rifle
Damage: 120 Points
Organic: 20%
Energy Life: -50%
Large: +50%

Too nitpicky?



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Just waiting for the mothership...