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Original post by Plasmadog
No, I think you misunderstood my suggestion. If the concentration runs out, you can still cast the spell, but there would be a good chance that the spell backfires and does more harm than good. It''s not a matter of the spell simply failing to work; it will always work but it can get dangerously unpredictable without sufficient concentration. So, yes you could just keep doing the "Mega destruct" spell, but at an increasing risk to yourself and your party.

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I understood -- and I definitely like the "danger" aspect. I guess your way would have to have some creative balancing techniques that stop high-level mages from abusing it, because they have an inhumanly large "concentration" ability. If used in a MMORPG (where "reloading" doesn''t really happen), this would work. If used in a single-player game, you end up with Issue #2, where the person will just keep reloading until they get a result they like.

-Chris

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Original post by crouilla
I guess your way would have to have some creative balancing techniques that stop high-level mages from abusing it, because they have an inhumanly large "concentration" ability.

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Well, the danger IS the balancing technique. Obviously you don''t keep increasing the maximum concentration indefinitly.

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Original post by crouilla
If used in a MMORPG (where "reloading" doesn''t really happen), this would work. If used in a single-player game, you end up with Issue #2, where the person will just keep reloading until they get a result they like.

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Isn''t that an issue with any system?

I love you guys. I had never expected to get so many ideas together so quickly. And once again I thank everyone for their input.

Although I already have a strong sense of how magic will work in my game.. and yes it is an mmorpg setting. But I can see some ideas that could change how I plan to piece togehter limitations and enhance the study of magic. In the book series "The Wheel of Time" magic has two things that effect it, the amount of power you can draw and how exausted you become while drawing it. I like the idea of using the mana and casting spells, eating away at your stamina. I also love the idea of casting while your stamina.. or cencentration is low causing spells to go awry. This could be handled by a large table that could be completly random. And the more extreem the spell and the less stamina you have.. the higher the chances that the adverse affefct will be near deadly. Perhaps it could even damage your psyche and stop you from casting at all for a peroid of time.

I''ll be honest, I like the possabilities of the mana leeching from the land.. but I am a magic junkie and the idea of doing that strikes a bad chord in me, so I''ll trust my instinct. However I will stick with my alteration of it. Where large spells of huge power.. or spells gone horribly wrong (see above for how that could happen) could damage reality for a peroid of time making magic react in odd ways. Fire may stop working all together or might produce a water spell. The Lightning strike could summon drink etc. (these cases would be examples of EXTREME damage to reality.)

Can I get a little more input of how to handle melee battle in a mmorpg setting? I have a few truly unused ideas, bu tI would like to see what everyone else has floating around in their head.

Thank again guys.

Combat, this section I havent touched very much in my personal musings, but...
RPG combat is handled insanly stupidly.

In RT:
Either pause the game, give orders, pause the game, give orders, play some more Baldur''s Gate, pause the game, BG, BG, BG

Frantically click on someone and click on another enemy ALOT!! CLICK CLICK CLICK!!! And hope your frame rate/processor/lag is good enough so you see the actions in real time

In TB:
I think it is better this way, personally, but IMHO, it breaks the immersiveness a bit. But hey, its just a game.

What I want to see is realism. If you went out on the battlefield with a dagger, then you would die.
If you used a sword then you would probably die against someone with a pike.

Hmm.. Realism is a hard word to work into a fantasy setting, but I get what you mean. Two people who are equally untrained one obviously using the superior weapon get in a fight. My money goes to the person with the better weapon.

I have been working on a melee system that has no skills until the player makes them. In essence (and god knows this will be hard to balance) you will have a whole host of directional attacks that depend on your weapon class (be it pieetcing or slashing etc.) I''m still working on a way to interface the actual use.. but one step at a time. If it has to be button clicking I''ll make it interesting enough to hold your attention. Now let us say you swing left with your sword then manage to kick. If you managed to hit the kick button perfectly timed after the swing it registers as a combo and is saved to a list. From there, after your out of danger, you can refer to this list, discard any usless combos and name the ones you want to keep. These become new skills that are character specific. To give this a point, and to make it more interesting four things will be accomplished with these skills. One, as you use them your skill goes up and gives you more leway as to when you have to click the next button in the combo. So at a high skill level you could be very lazy as to when you clicked the kick button after you swing. Two, certain combos will match up with presets in the game that allow for amazing moves, matrix style, sureal and powerful. Also (although I havent a clue where to start it) using certain each step in a combo becomes a litle more powerful depending on which moves you use together. They may also have the effect of stunning a creature or taking of a limb etc. Three, The animation will change to look much more fancy as A) the combo skill goes up B) The combos become more complex. Four, the skills can be tought to other players, so that a guild called the dragon brigade, for example, could all have signature skills that would identify them.

This way there is no way for someone to say. "A warrior, we grouped with one yesterday and he sucked, therefore all warriors suck" because each person will be generally different. This happen in EverQuest quite often as a result of every class being forced to adhere to the exact same skills and generally equipment.

Thats a good idea. Like if the player swings a halberd across with the axehead part, then pulls it back quickly with the pike...
Or fakes a high strike with the sword, them noves in and bashes the sheild down on the enemy. There could be a lot of potential with that. Except if there are only a limited set of combos....Eventually, all warriros will know all the combinations. You also have to be careful that it doesnt wind up like a wizard with swords and axes...where you choose from a list and it is performed.

And it cant be too mortal combatish either, but that idea is really excellent.

I think that the kind of combat system used in The Legend of Zelda:Ocarina of Time and TLoZ:Majora''s Mask would be fantastic for an MMORPG, but the problem is implementing combos, special attacks, and what-not when you only have the two mouse buttons to use for attacks. Of course, you could control the character''s movement with the mouse (directly, no point-n-click) while ''locked on'' to an enemy and within a reasonable range. That way, the player has their left hand free to hit keys for combos on the keyboard, and all they have to do to flee is back up until they are out of lock-on range or hit the flee key manually and run like the wind. If this doesn''t quite make sense, just tell me, and I''ll post the exact details how it would work.

Oh, and you should require characters to go on a difficult quest to get magic--that way you won''t end up with everyone and his brother as a mage. Also, consider staying away from spell cliches. Instead of a bolt of lightning sprouting from the mage''s hand, why not have him summon a small thunder cloud, and as his skill increases the lighting will have a better chance of striking the target and striking multiple times. I also highly favor the idea of "pumping" a spell with more mana to increase its power instead of having Fireball I, Fireball II, Fireball III, etc.

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"It''s groin-grabbingly transcendent!" - Mr. Gamble, my teacher, speaking of his C++ AP class

In the case of a skill being created.. it will never become clickable. it just means you can begin to gain skill in it. Which allows you to make more timing mistakes when performing the combo.. so if there was a .5 second window of timing error at lvl 1 at lvl 50 you could mess up the next click by 2 seconds or some such. As for a limited amount.. in theory there will be too many to count. We just need an equation that will make sure that they dont all have the exact same effect(that will be the hard part).

And as a side note.. casting wont be a selection interface either.. might even be voice. but that one is still in the works.

The mage quest of OOP''er, i think if you do implement it, then the quest should be some logic thing, or smarts thing, not a brute force quest or birng this thing back to this guy. Something more like Harry Potter''s Sorcerer Stone (required reading for RPG developers IMHO).

Hmm, combat, is this RT? B/C if it is, your guy makes a move, hits "Ctrl" + "/" Ctrl being Attack with priamry weapon, "/" is basic melee HtH move. If you hit Ctrl, then / a second after it, is the combo qued up? Or is it executed immediatly, because if it is immediatly, then your guy would have a lag between his attack and the kick. And generally a fighter in a battle would use a mvoe after studying th eopponent, not whenever he had a second to type to code, ala Mortal Combat. so you would have to see. If the character is attacking you relentlessly with a longer weapon, then it might be good to take a hit and come up inside his range. If a character is going ape $h1t with a sword, then you can parry it after he attacks with it, then come back and strike the character. all in all, you would need a fair representation of what the enemy is doing, otherwise you would have a bunch of attacks that would all work equally (besides bonuses for dfirrent types of damage (bash, pierce) against specific armors) well, or with mayeb a better chance of to hit or to damage. Some things work better than others in some situtations. Maybe certain moves against
To start:
Agressive enemy
Defensive enemy
Consider:
Armour type
Weapon type- meaning reach, tactic

And a discerning player would be able to see a favored way of using the weapon. Eg, slash or thrust with a sword, bash with the club or Swing wildly, etc

You would need a limited equation, and bonuses against certain factors listed above. Maybe some things might even work better int the dark (clubs over rapiers), some things better in the rain (maybe thrust over slash), close quarters (moves to get on the inside), weapon size (move outside enemy''s range)

M2C.

I like the stamina/health/concentration factors.
Its pretty sweet.
-vlion