Hi all! Like everyone else, I''m working on a budding RPG. I was a little disapointed when I realized almost everyone did just that, but anyway... As soon the fighting start, the engine will go into turn based mode. Each turn is called a round. Every round is divided into three phases: The maneuvering phase, the movement phase and the fighting phase. Now, everyone has a number of Action Points (AP), which are used to perform actions. In the first phase (maneuvering), you spend some of your AP on the Initiative roll. This represent how much of your combat ability goes into the maneuvering. Every AP spent increases the chance of going first. When everyone has alloted their AP''s, the guy with the worst roll has to plot his movement first. His intended path will then be visible for everybody else when it''s their turn to make their move. Now it''s only a matter of going through all the characters involved, all the way up to the guy who rolled best on the Initiative roll. He will of course be able to see where all the others intend to go. This is the first phase. The second phase, movement, is where all the little guys start to move. If two people''s paths cross, both will be asked which action to take. At least some, or maybe all of these actions would be available: Fight: Engage in melee. Tackle: Crash into him and *then* go into melee. Good if you wanna try to unbalance or knock down an enemy. Ride By Attack: If you''re significantly faster than your opponent (usually only when mounted), you can simply attempt to cut him down while riding by. Trample: Available if you''re heavy enough (mounted) and/or with good enough speed. It means you simple attempt to run your opponent over. Run Around: This is an attempt to evade the opponent and continue wherever you where going. Full Evade: If you''re surprised, it might be a good idea to just throw yourself out of the way... Stand Ground: Brace yourself for the impact to come. Good against tackles, not so good against tramplings... Use Object: This option wouldn''t say "Use object". It would say "Slam door into face", or "Pull curtains down on him". You get the idea. A surprised person might only be able to Full Evade, a running person would not be able to Stand Ground, and so on. The next and last phase is the fighting phase. This is where the actions taken above is resolved. Any given fight is divided into exchanges. An exchange is the same as melee attack(chop, thrust, whatever) and a corresponding attempt to defend. In one round you''ll usually have two exchanges before you''re allowed to maneuver again (i.e. the round ends and you go into maneuvering phase). Exceptions include Ride-By attacks, which only lasts for one exchange. In these two exchanges, you spend your remaining AP on various maneuvers, such as cuts, thrusts, counters, feints, wrestling, blocks and parries. Who gets to go first in an exchange, you ask? The answer is... Both! Or rather, you get to choose if you want to attack or defend. If both want to attack, a speed check of some kind is made. Winner hits first. Of course, since both are preoccupied with attacking, none may defend the other''s attack... Could be messy... There is one exception to this rule. If you had to defend in your last exchange, you''re now in defensive mode. That means that anyone who''s *not* in defensive mode will *always* go before you. You''ll remain in defensive mode until you either avoid fighting for an entire round or if you manage a good enough parry or block. In the latter case, your opponent will now be forced into defensive mode. As you might have guessed, there are no HP''s in this game. One strike can kill. Always. OTOH, small wounds won''t add up the way they do in HP systems. Still, lethality will be high. Hopefully, player frustration won''t be that high because of the vast array of possibilities. There are tons of things to do in melee combat alone. That, and a handy quicksave/quickload feature... Anyway, what do you all think? Hopefully, all this will some day result in desperate battles where people crash into each other rugby style, get runned down by cavalry, try to wrestle down each other, chop of arms, etc. I imagine this might be much for someone who hasn''t got the whole picture in his head. Still, I''m looking forward to any constructive criticism or helpful comments, and I''ll happily answer any questions! P.S. To cut down on the vast amount of animations required, I''ll probably use a solution similar to Fallout: Fewer animations, but with alot of descriptive text.

I like the originality of your battle system. Some players may think it''s slow/time consuming, but I can''t really judge for sure just by a description.

Yoo should also look into using 8 bit image''s, each with thier own palette. This will allow 3-4x as many animation frames in the same memory, and give you the ability to "colorize" one of two or more characters using the same graphic.

Good luck.

It sounds alot like the FF:Tactics, Tactics: Ogre series, combat system, which really, IMO is not such a bad thing.

That said, the way you propose to handle initiative has the potential to be really good, but I think you have to be careful with some things.

Having to choose how many AP points to give to each character, every round does sound rather boring. It gives me flashbacks of playing the above mentioned games and having say, 1 or 2 characters chasing down a last enemy, and the rest of your party too far away to be any use, so you have to skip each of their turns.

It was bad enough having to do that, but to also have to click through each character again as you assign AP could really make things dull. Still, that's just my oppinion.

I wonder if it would be better to simply have the initiative determined for each player (however you want to do that, either have it fixed based on their stats, or a random roll or whatever), so that you can just get on with the fighting, using your cool sounding, "see what the slower ones are planning" type system.

There could still be some sort of game mechanism or command to increase a characters initiative for a particular round.

[edited by - botman2 on March 2, 2004 4:52:12 AM]

To the player, a round would look like this:

*Ask how many of the characters AP should be used for maneuvering.
*Ask player where he want's to go, or if he wants to do something else (change weapon, pick up stuff, whatever).
Animate.
*If collision occurs, let player choose his action.
*If he fights, go through one or two exchanges.
Repeat.

Now, the first two points would be one mouse click each, usually. Third point is one click as well. Fourth point would probably be two clicks/exchange.
This would total up to about seven clicks in most combat intensive cases. Not that bad. Still of course, it's not Diablo or Baldur's Gate. But thats not what I want.

BTW. I forgot to mention that the AP's are also used in the fighting exchanges. Dividing up the AP's between fighting and maneuvering will be one of the main tactical decisions.

EDIT: 8-bit animations... Good idea! I've always liked the tricks you can do with color rotation and whatnot...

[edited by - Kekko on March 2, 2004 5:30:38 PM]

How many charcters will a player have to control? to many and the initive system is going to seriously slowdown the speed of each round.

Also why doesn't initivate have any effect on battle. If I have higher initive then my opponet shouldn't that mean I get to strike first? Espcailly if my opponent is running away and I'm attempting to run them down with on the back of my warhorse.

-----------------------------------------------------
Writer, Programer, Cook, I'm a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document



[edited by - TechnoGoth on March 2, 2004 10:55:00 PM]

you could have the initiative in the first round based completely on stats, and then for each following round apply any AP not used in the previous round to the initiative. so, you could "save up" some of your AP to get a good initiative on the next round.

Krez
That''s a good idea. More speed, yet the mechanical result would be the same. Never thought of it.

TechnoGoth
It was designed for one character only. If more characters are included, speed-ups will surely follow.
As for initiative affecting battle... See, the word initiative might be a little mis-leading.
Let''s say we have two guys, A and B. A puts alot of AP''s into maneuvering. B doesn''t use any APs at all for maneuvering.
He saves ''em all up for the actual fighting. This would represent that he''s waiting for him to come close so he can strike him down. In that situation, he might very well come first.
However, the situation you describe can come up. First of all, if a guy is fleeing then he probably won''t attack at all. Should he attempt to do that anyway, there will be a speed check to see who hits first. This roll is modified by alot of things, including the attacker''s speed, the lenght of the weapons involved aaand the results of their initiative rolls.
Also, a succesful riding roll when attempting a Ride By attack would force the opponent into defensive mode. Thus, the rider *will* hit first. And since Ride By attacks only last one exchange, the rider will have rode by before his opponent gets a chance to counter-attack.
So, initiative has the effects on combat that you want.

Hi all, I''ve been looking around for a decent Turn based game for PC with a similar 3D combat strategy to the likes of Vandal Hearts or Final Fantasy Tactics. Are there any around or any in production for PC?

The combat arenas in Vandal Hearts were very challenging and required thought. Ive looked at the Temple of Elemental Evil and Age of Wonders II, and although both are turnbased, the combat arenas are too plain and straightforward, and offer no challenges such as height, depth, stairs, platforms, towers, channels, or bridges that play an important part in how you go about defeating your enemies.

If there is a 3d PC game out there suitable for my needs, Id really, really love to know about it..
Thanks in advance,
Bav