Does anyone know if there exist a case study document that goes over 2D fighter-style combat games? Specifically, I'm looking for a case study for a 'secret-of-mana-ish' style fighting game. To even more specific, I'm hoping someone out of the billions of people that have ever lived has put together a document that goes over the positive/negatives/effects of many different elements in 2D fighting. For example: If I have a character wielding a sword, where does an enemy have to be in order to get hit? It may seem like a silly question, but there could be hundreads of answers to this question... all of which dramatically effect game play. If it is a square tile game, it may be that the enemy must be directly in front (as in the case with Zelda for the NES). Or, it is possible that the enemy could be in any of the 3 tiles in front of the unit. Or, if it isn't tile based, it may be at a 45 degree angle from the character that sweeps out at a 1 length (some random unit length) by 90 degress (prehaps like diablo?). Or, the sword may start at the far right, and sweet forward 90 degrees to end up straight in front as in the case of a backhand swing. (Whew). And thats just an example with a sword... there are hundreads of other little items in a 2D game such as swing rate, swing radius, damage per swing, swing chance to hit, etc. Then, lets say a unit does get hit... other than losing damage, what could happen to it? In some games, the enemy gets knocked back. And what are the advantages/disadvantages for getting knocked back far vs. knocked back 1 'space'. And if the character gets hit, what happens? What are the advantages of gaining invincibility for a breif moment as you recover from the hit? The disadvantages? Should a single sword swing only hit one enemy, or could it hit several? Anyways, thats just where I'm hoping to start. Any reading material to this effect would be very helpful. Thanks.

iv never done a full game like this but,

first id avoid making the sprites and hit areas locked to a tile, just use some basic geometry for hit areas, make a few diffrent weapons with diffrent shaped hit areas and try to make the hit areas line up with the animations or the game will be very frustrating

But how would you measure the advantages and disadvantages to do a study like that? It's all the player's vague subjective impression of what's 'fun' or 'hard' isn't it?

I would imagine that it would have to be study-able. I'm almost imaginging a set-up where the main character is locked in a room with 1 or more enemies, and there is a giant control panel off the side of the screen that is used for tweaking all the variables. You could let somone fight for a while, then suddenly say 'ok, what if i allowed for a broad sweeping action with the sword instead of a straight forawrd poke'. Then, the person observing could note the changes in game play.

Outside of that setup, all the games I've made in the past required a lot of pre-engineering work. For example, if upping a units power attribute suddenly allows him to kill an enemy in 2 swings of the sword instead of 3, thats a 33% decrease in time required to gain the same amount of experience (assuming the exp. gained from an enemey doesn't change over time). Now, you've got to worry that the exp. required to level up again is at least equal to 33%, or else the character could theoretically reach level 12 faster than he reached level 11. And that doesn't make any sense. When I worked for Caterpillar, they had studies that showed that an dump truck needed to be able to hold 3 loads from an excavater bucket in order to optimize efficiency. No more, no less.

Anyways, I'm guessing that if such a document does exisit, its probably proprietary. I was just hoping to get lucky.

I love fantasy games but at the same time I want them to be believable as if hey... there is a chance (or make it feel like there could be a chance) that this could happen/would happen like this in real life. With that in mind this is how I would tackle that problem. If you want to get in depth. Try this self observation.

If you have a full length mirror it would help a lot. Say for instance, you want to know what is a believable properties for a warrior fighting with a claymore. Grab a object that you can pretend to be the claymore, (close size, shape, and weight preferred) set up a fake dummy. I.e. a lump of pillows for a small slime monster or use a small tree to represent a person. Then do a self observation as you approach the tree how you hold the weapon and what type of attacks would feel natural. Depending on the depth of your game implement x amount of motions and actions. Being it is 2d I think it will be a bit limited. For range or number of hexes the weapon crosses you will have to put things into scale.

For instance, A warrior holding a Claymore that is 3 3/4ft long swings at a person in front of him and each hex is 3ft X 3ft or 9sqft wide (about avg space a person takes up) then the reach of the tip of the blade (-1/2ft to allow damage penetration), found by holding the sword and measuring from shoulder to tip, is about 4ft to 5ft. thus, he could land a good blow on an enemy standing 2 hexes away (w/ that scale.) If someone is standing in the hex directly to the the left/right of him, and the warriors attack was a swing (90degree arch from what ever side he swung from) then that person is likly to be hit perhaps stopping the swing from hitting its intended target or traveling through with full damage still or dampening damage depending on realism.

Now if you want to add fatigue effect to the game. My claymore I own weighs 6 pounds. Doesn't sound like much but after beating the crap out of a helpless tree for 1min, my arms where feeling tired.

Anyhow, that is the way I do my studies I just grab a measuring tape, a scale some paper and pencil. Then try out the closes recreation to it, in real life and work from their.

I remember reading someones study on weapon damage types against armor by hitting a pop can with different weapon replicas. i.e. a pencil for a wooden staff, a knife for a (knife?) sword (swinf damage vs. thrust). I just wanted to add that.

p.s. With that all said I have one question. How the heck do warriors defeat treents (them tree people things) in RPG's I kicked the "bark" out-ta my tree with my sword and it never disappeared in wavy lines and nor did it give me gold and experience. :/

I think RPGs use magical swords... ones that deal a lot more damage than your typical melee weapon.

I guess I'm looking for more of a mathematical analysis to combat and class upgrading. Like, how did Secret of Mana determine how many HP an enemy had? And if I do 100 damage vs. the bee, why can't I do 100 damage vs. the big ugly knight? Same thing with Diablo (I'm sure if you could see how much damage was inflicted per swing, it would be similar to SOM). Given the number of times this type of combat system has been made, you'd think someone would have it all written down and summarized somewhere.

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Original post by Cygnus_X I think RPGs use magical swords... ones that deal a lot more damage than your typical melee weapon. I guess I'm looking for more of a mathematical analysis to combat and class upgrading. Like, how did Secret of Mana determine how many HP an enemy had? And if I do 100 damage vs. the bee, why can't I do 100 damage vs. the big ugly knight? Same thing with Diablo (I'm sure if you could see how much damage was inflicted per swing, it would be similar to SOM). Given the number of times this type of combat system has been made, you'd think someone would have it all written down and summarized somewhere.

This guide to weapons & armors in Secret of Mana has a little table towards the bottom explaining how all the stats affect hit rate, evasion%, damage, etc. but it's a little vague and I don't know exactly what you're looking for. Probably the best way to find a good balance for your game is to start your character with about 100 HP (plus X amount on level up) and play through, noting which monsters are ridiculously easy and which ridiculously hard. The downside to this is that you'll have to have a running game to test this. :/

[Edited by - Frequency on January 8, 2006 6:05:41 PM]

The link doesn't work :(

Try going here instead and clicking the Weapons&Armor guide...there's other info in there as well, about HP of the main characters vs. the HP of the monsters, though I didn't see any outright formulas for damage done.

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Original post by XxSIETHxXIf you have a full length mirror it would help a lot. Say for instance, you want to know what is a believable properties for a warrior fighting with a claymore. Grab a object that you can pretend to be the claymore, (close size, shape, and weight preferred) set up a fake dummy. I.e. a lump of pillows for a small slime monster or use a small tree to represent a person. Then do a self observation as you approach the tree how you hold the weapon and what type of attacks would feel natural.

Alternatively, use a camera so you can replay back and forth and view in detail.

Alternatively, release the footage on the net so people can make fun of you for the next 10 years :P