OK, does anyone have any ideas on how to do Turn Based Combat while allowing people not in combat to walk around without problems.
I seem to recall Fallout did this, but I don't have it so I can't look at how it did it. How did Fallout do it?
The actual game will have swords and such, not guns (instentanious ranged weapons). It will also be massivly multiplater / multi-user dungeon.
Any ideas?
My basic idea is automaticly going to turn-based when in range of a hostile creature.
Or perhaps if a creature wants to fight you they pull you into turnbased, or if you want to fight a creature, you can go into turnbased with that creature.
Or a combo of the two.
My main objective is to prevent problems related to lag in real time combat. (should handle a lag of around one second with ease, or up to about 5 seconds or so)
[edit: Using your ideas I have posted my design so far - look down the page ]
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[edited by - Andrew Russell on November 16, 2002 12:43:47 AM][edit: I know the edited date is wrong, so does Dave][edited by - Andrew Russell on November 16, 2002 12:49:01 AM]
That''s something like what Fallout did. It was real time until something attacked you, then it went into turn based. You could also go into turn based yourself at anytime. If there were no "threats" at the end of a turn it switched back to real time.
Im a big fan of turn based combat over realtime, fallout did it well using ''action points'' for each sprite. I''m assuming these action points were a simple integer, which decremented by a set amount for each action, with control swithcing to the next player when they hit 0 or the player volunteered to end his turn. Using turn based for a massive multiplayer affair would be very difficult. I''m not gonna say impossible, as im sure you''ve thought of a way. However it''s gonna run slowlyno matter what, even if all players act at once, and then alll NPCs act together. One compromise is to merge realtime and turn based as done in Fallout Tactics, which still uses the action points system, but recharges them in real time(whilst standing still), so your sprites may always move(but neiter regains nor looses any action points whilst doing so), but actions and combat are carried out in a pseudo realtime turn based kinda way (if that makes sense). A noteworthy point is to mention that fallout tactics is the only fallout game with a multiplayer option, which suggests to me you ma want o impliment some real time aspects into your game. Still I was raised on X-com so I still love turn based engines, either way good luck and i hope my over playing of the fallout series has been some use to you.
I´ve played the Fallout series quite a bit and I think, if your main issue is lag then the Fallout system isn´t ideal.
Maybe it would make more sense to treat combat as a game entitiy of itself - once two or more characters engage in combat they are displayed as "fighting", allowing other players to walk around in real time unless they walk up and choose to join the fight. That way the slowdown to turn-based affects only those absolutely necessary (there´s nothing worse than switching to turn-based just because some idiot on the other side of the map has started shooting).
As for the handling of combat itself, how about some sort of simultaneous turn-based? Not the way Fallout handled it, but letting both players enter their orders for the next round simultaneously (reducing wait times), then playing out the round. These rounds could be fairly long, depending on how much combat AI you want to include. The actualy sequence of combat would be determined by the stats of the characters involved.
If we''re talking about 2 fighters, wouldn''t it be possible and plausible to set up a radius of ''combat'' that all other players get warned about if they come near/enter? Anything inside that radius goes turnbased, everything else goes on normally(although it would look like it was going by fast to the combatants).
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Jagged Alliance 2 did this very nicely. You could move around with your mercs freely in real-time outside of combat. Once any of your mercs spotted an enemy, it shifted into turn-based, and usually gave you the first turn. If the enemy spotted you first, they often got the first shot off.
If you killed everyone in sight, the game would shift back into real-time after 1 or 2 full turns without any enemy sightings.
This generally worked really well, and made things move along nicely. You could position your guys quickly and easily by pointing and clicking like an RTS. Once shots started flying, you had total control and could do sophisticated actions like run 20'', throw a grenade, then duck and administer first aid to a downed ally.
For an MM type game, you could make combat pull everyone within range into turn-based mode. If you suddenly heard shots ring out, would you continue coolly walking around town shopping? You''d probably duck and cover, draw a weapon, and look for the threat.
This could have an unintended side-effect of calming down fights in towns...when other players are trying to buy gear, they will not appreciate being interrupted every minute or two by other people getting in fights. You might see a lynch mob of players...
How about, when two characters go into combat, they''re shipped off to another screen in which they can fight. Kind of like Breath of Fire, except not. In the world, they disappear and maybe some kind of hot spot is set up so that anyone that steps on the spot goes to the ''arena'' or something.
I really like the radius idea. That seems to me the cleverest possible way. One could also "freeze" the fighting players and allow the other players to walk freely around. The fighting players could be observed fighting, but it wouldn''t interfere with other activities. This limits fights to one against one, though. Or perhaps other players could click on the battling parties and choose to join the fight. Then, of course, you''d get people joining in at the very end of a fight to finish both of the original fighters off.
Would it be strictly turn based, or a hybrid method like was traditionally used on console RPGs? (FF, ChronoTrigger, etc.).
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