hey,i am working on an online room based mech fighting game,and it's probably about time i'll start designing the battle system. i can detail that the gameplay is suppoused to be fast,you fly fast,can rotate on 2 angels,pretty much like zone of the enders. now that's the general idea and i need to give it more detail so i thought about the battle system working like this : there is one single class,and each player has 3 fighting states which are melee fighting,ranged fighting and utility. each state would have 5 slots for abilitis the players chooses(so not everyone would be the same). for melee state it would be abilitis related to melee. for ranged kinda the same,and for utility players would be able to do stuff like heal,summon mini mechs to help,and do other usefull stuff. beside that most of the time you would be flying(the setting is space,and the only land is meteors). now what do you think about the design of that battle system? it is important the battle system would be fun,not too repetitive and it's good if it is dynamic(because seriously,it's not fun if you dont analize the enemy and you always know what they gona do). so what do you think? any tips on how i can improve this or completly throw it away for a better system?

I think this could be fun. I can imagine thinking up strategies like to trying to take down the enemy utility mech without putting your own in danger.

It sounds like mechs can change their states in battle. If they can, then everyone is potentially any state, so everyone is essentially the same. It could also be very frustrating (by the time the melee mech closes in on the ranged mech, the ranged mech has changed into a melee mech, making them even). I think you should make states a permanent thing (like a class) and let the player have multiple mechs to choose from before battle.

What kind of abilities do you have? If you want it to be dynamic, you want your abilities to be more or less useful depending on what the enemy has chosen.

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Original post by WolfgangZenger I think this could be fun. I can imagine thinking up strategies like to trying to take down the enemy utility mech without putting your own in danger. It sounds like mechs can change their states in battle. If they can, then everyone is potentially any state, so everyone is essentially the same. It could also be very frustrating (by the time the melee mech closes in on the ranged mech, the ranged mech has changed into a melee mech, making them even). I think you should make states a permanent thing (like a class) and let the player have multiple mechs to choose from before battle. What kind of abilities do you have? If you want it to be dynamic, you want your abilities to be more or less useful depending on what the enemy has chosen.

amm you got some good points there. i did think of putting a 1-2 seconds cooldown when switching states. i also thought of an ability for melee state that charges at high speed at the mech you are targeting(this could be a solution to the problem you mentioned with by the time melee mech reaches ranged mech).
but you are right,i am not sure if a short abilities cooldown is enough to avoid a situation where having 3 states is almost the same as having one state with 15 abilities.
some abilities i thought of could for melee stuff like : a hit that drains energy,a hit that slows the target,a hit that you charge,etc... for ranged could be missles,and eh... wow, dont have much of ideas for ranged abilities. for utility it could be heal self,heal mate,release battle drones that help you,create fog,screw enemys' controls,create mines.
i should probably put teleportation and charge in the ranged state...

Make sure that the different abilities of the players are different enough that you can have very distinct combat roles by taking different abilities. It sounds like it might be fun though, as long as you don't make too much of the distinction between melee, ranged and utility modes. They should basically be just different sets of options, with perhaps a little lag for changing modes. You could do fewer slots per mode.

On the whole, it sounds like it might be fun. So much depends on exactly how you implement it.