quote: Original post by Zileas
What I suggest you first do is lay out what sorts of things you want to see happen in combat, THEN construct a system. As in, what do you want players focusing their attention on, and what do you feel is fundamentally important to the gameplay.
Yes, I totally agree, this is something I always say to just about any topic. Goals first. Broad goals but also specific goals. Just think about what you want to see happen. For example:
1) How big should the difference be between different classes, different armors, etc. How well should an "average" fighter do against a "really good" fighter? Never even hit? Do 1 point of damage?
2) How often should critical hits happen, how much damage should they do? Should they be able to turn the tide of battle? Should they happen more the better you are (effictively giving higher level characters even more advantage) or the same for everyone?
3) How long should a typical battle take, etc etc etc.
Just imagine how you think the battle should play out. It helps to examine some extreme cases (very high vs. very low level, for example) to see how your system will work in general.
There is one concrete thing I will say to look out for. Say the damage formula is just
damage = my attack - your defense.
So, for example, if my attack is 100, and yours is 99, I do 1 point of damage.
The problem here is, if I go up one level and now say have an attack of 105, I went up 5% but I do 6 times the damage I did before! You see this often in games where going up one level makes a huge difference. You might find that you can compete with someone your own level, but if they get just one or two levels ahead they become a monster!
This has advantages too though, like each level up can really feel like a lot in the right circumstances.
