[CS:DE] Random(ish) Encounter Turn-Based Battle System

[MotrinIB]

* Single Player combat for now.  Once I get the rest of the system completed (spells, items, initiative, attack/spell/item/mob-attack animations, etc…) I will start integrating it with the pre-existing party framework.
* MOB Editor for creating/editing all mobs on the fly
* NPC Editor attributes for assigning specific mobs for random encounters and # range for min/max monsters in a battle
* Turn-based battle with chance to surprise encounter or be surprised by encounter.  (Plans for classes and stats to effect this)
* Battle music, attack sounds, victory anthem (need to spend some minutes adjusting timing)
* Map editor attribute for setting environment type for battle scenes
* Chance for monsters to drop items to player inventory upon death

* Party framework integration
* Battle transition effects
* Character sprite battle animations
* Monster sprite animations for combat
* Targeting/selection graphics for combat screen
* Up to two rows of monsters (for melee/ranged/spell/ability modifiers
* Party member selected positions: Front/Back Row (modifies melee/ranged dmg)
* Mob Sprite changes based on remaining HP.
* "Train-style" party movement with leader guiding party.
* Leader/party points-per-battle awards for use in purchasing/un-locking passive encounter abilities based on class to help encourage parties.  Leader skills will be blanket abilities for whole party and party skills will be party member only.  For instance:  If a rogue-type class has unlocked a Silent Approach passive leadership skill with accumulated leader-point, increases chance of surprising encounter and ability to avoid encounter-NPCs.  Tank-type leader skill for blanket increased defense (due to directing his party in the art of defense), etc…  Party Passive skills such as: Mage-Type party skill Focus - which will give mage spells % effect increase due to ability to focus more by manipulating position as such to decrease aggro to mobs.  Using this method of rewarding players for being a leader and rewarding players for being a party member will give players something to work for in return for giving party leader control of their character movement while in a party.

>! This is the current state of the client-side battle while I am still working on the code.  Using a test map, as I'm not going to bother making fancy maps while I am still modifying attributes and code.
>! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeWi8kr2K6k

[guzmanm]

Wow. Really amazing. I'm sure that when you finish it, it's going to be pretty awesome.

[MotrinIB]

Thanks.  I originally coded the system for an ORE edit of mine called Dragon Warrior Online: Age of Heroes.  A lot of fun till I started getting copyright letters from Enix back on '01 after making the client available for download in beta. CS:DE allows me to make the system a lot deeper and visually advanced than my ORE version of it.  Having a blast working on it.

[guzmanm]

Well, it looks amazing, and has a lot of potential. Cannot wait to see more.

[ark0n]

Wow! Looking good!

[MotrinIB]

Just a quick screenshot to show how the battles look with the new environment scenes in combat.

- Added environmental attribute to mapeditor to assign environment type to maps.  This then assigns an environment battle scene to battles while in combat.
- Tweaked the timing for battle messages and sounds.
- Added new MobEditor options for assigning specific sounds to monsters - for use in base attacks by that monster.
- Tweaking combat algorithms a little.
- Added variables to PlayerRec for logging players back into uncompleted battles if they lose or close connection while in battle.

>! Leaving the card traces on mob images for now until I move on to adding the second row of mobs.
I still need to clean up the text, too… but its functional.
>! 

[guzmanm]

Yep, the battle text are a little confusing. Other than that, it looks incredibly charming! My only recommendation would be: Add a player sprite so you can see your team/player and stuff. PLEASE, don't make the battle system like Earthbound's. That'll be horrible. I know it's still in progress, but, I just wanted to say that.

[MotrinIB]

I'll post a video of it in action soon.  Do have plans for player sprites… just not sure exactly how I want to display them or animate them yet during combat, other than highlighting the player in the list during their turn - as well during the action input phase.

[Techno 5.0]

im definetly interested in this.

[Murdoc]

Looks good, hopefully you can go through with it to completion

[guzmanm]

@MotrinIB:

> I'll post a video of it in action soon.  Do have plans for player sprites… just not sure exactly how I want to display them or animate them yet during combat, other than highlighting the player in the list during their turn - as well during the action input phase.

Well, can't wait to see that video. The screen-shot looks really attractive.

[MotrinIB]

Here is a short video of the battle system in action in its current development state on a test map.

Made players immune to Attack-On-Sight while in combat.

Working on Mob Item drop-to-inventory and total EXP rewards after combat now.  After that, I'm going to work on battle transition effects.

>! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeWi8kr2K6k&feature=youtu.be

[MotrinIB]

Monsters now have a chance to drop items when defeated in combat and drop them into the player inventory.  Will obviously have to make some changes to it once parties are integrated into it to make drops fair for all party members.  Probably random at first until I work on a roll option - which would be further down Dev road.  Now to total up EXP and award it post-combat.

[guzmanm]

The video looks amazing. Sorry for not watching it before. Looks like we have someone with actual programming skills over here.

Basically, the battle logic has been done correctly, but there's no organization in there.
What I mean that, if you want to make an awesome custom battle system, you'll have to add some awesome battle effects to it and a very comfortable UI. Instead of the server sending text/adding text to the txtChat, render the text above the enemies. That will make it a lot more viewable-friendly.
Another thing would be, adding animations. What you got there is just an awesome plain battle system with a very large potential. If you want it to be the best at what it does, add animations. If I were you, I'd use spells as attack animations, and save some time to myself, but that's just me.

**TL;DR**: the battle system is pretty awesome. You got some nice stuff there.
But you didn't focused on the most attractive part, that are the graphics, and by graphics I mean, effects, animations, etc.

Good job! I'm keeping an eye on this, definitely.

[jcsnider]

tl;dr

I did watch. It looks like hell but has a lot of potential.

Don't be afraid to have it cover the whole screen and draw the hp bars and such on top, you have transparency in your windows for a reason!

Secondly…. get better victory music and battle music rpg maker xp stuff is lame although I understand it has a placeholder.

I will be keeping track of this, overall I can see great things come from it if you follow through and finish it.

Keep up the work!
jcsnider

[azkanan]

Well, this is odd. I'm not quite sure to say - a newbie with skills? …How odd. :D

Still, the system looks like it works and has potential - one question, how's PvP going to work around this? Or are you going to have two combat systems, PvE and PvP?

[MotrinIB]

Thanks for the feedback.

@NamelessSoul - Already started working on the combat action animations.  Currently working based on equipped weapon type… just need to control animation speed right now.  The animation and sound effect plays on the attacked monster, though - so step in the right direction.  Once I've got them animating properly, I will have the monster image react to being attacked as well.  Yes, I did use an edited version of the current spell system to accomplish this.  Started evaluating the rendertext for lessons on drawing the battle text to the combat screens, but will focus more on that once I have the animations running smoothly.

@jcsnider - Yeah, I was thinking about expanding the battlescreen just last night.  Not sure how I want to fill it in, right now, though.  This would allow me to make more room for character sprite animations, as well.  I want to move the party information to the top of the screen, anyway.  As for the music - I absolutely agree with you.  I'm not very keen on most of the RPGMaker music, but it helps put me in the mood while I'm testing and gives me a better idea of what I'm trying to accomplish.

@Azkanan - To be honest, I haven't really considered PVP right now.  The original combat system is still in place and unedited, though.  While it would be easy to create a PVP system using the turn-based combat system (if I used custom player images for the opponents (which would require paperdolling those, as well), It's something I would need to seriously think about and start planning ahead for.  Thanks for giving me a poke on that now, instead of later. ;)

[guzmanm]

Working on the animations already? Sounds amazing! Can't wait to see it when you're done!

[MotrinIB]

Ironed out the animation speeds.  Enlarged the battle screen.  Moved the stat bars down below the combat window during combat.  Plan on lining all party members in a row down there.  Now considering what to do in re-working the battle menu and the extra space there.  Also have to consider how I want to handle and display status effects.  I'll post an updated video as soon as I have time this week between work and family.

[MotrinIB]

Here's a quick shot of the current edited battle screen layout.  Looking for suggestions on battle menu placement, tweaks, or ideas.  Keep in mind I want to add visual status effects for each party member and eventually work in a paperdolled player image.

>! 

[guzmanm]

Looks really amazing so far, but I suggest that, for now, go for a Final Fantasy/Chrono Trigger style of Interface.

>! 

[evilbunnie]

No offence man, but visually(in the first video, didn't watch the others) it doesn't look very good. Maybe spice it up by having moving characters, moving attack animations, HP MP bars, etc etc.

Also, maybe add something in there that splits it up from the rest? Also; Parry and other random events. Maybe even lightning strikes etc. Also! Make them be able to cast spells, with limited MP and such!

Looking good and keep up the work bro.

[MotrinIB]

Alright.  I've been away since January (moved across country and settled down).  Just received all of my externals and transfered all of my source to a new gaming rig.  I had to modify the handling of resolution in order to get back to work on the game, since the new system has a larger monitor and higher resolution.  Glad it happened, because I was eventually going to have to modify it to accomodate end-user resolution differences, too.

So, plugging away at the new combat system once more.  Just got started again last night.  Cleaned up the combat text, added a few more sounds.  Wrapping my head around where I left off.

I'm still taking everyone's feedback into consideration, as well.  I do like the idea of animated, floating damage text over the enemies.  I do plan on adding animation to the battler mobs to reflect taking damage and performing actions.  As well, I am going to remove the mob animation upon selection and replace it with a targeting reticle.  Mobs will be able to cast spells and abilities as well, and will be animated with a casting animation on the mob, and a result animation on the targeted player(s) stat box (and hopefully sprite later down the road).

Right now I am going in and refining the basic combat procedures and algorithms.  While the math I am using right now is workable, it's not exponentially feasable.  Just basic calculations I used with mob/player stats to make sure the framework was operational as I moved forward.  Now I am grinding away at a solid set of algorithms that will allow for additional modifiers I have planned to implement in the future.  Once I am temporarily satisfied with those, I will move forward again. 

In the mean time, I am definitely looking for feedback or suggestions on possible battle screen layouts. 

I am also very keen on the idea of adding paperdolled (waiste up, perhaps), third-person character sprites on the bottom of the screen to reflect which player is performing an action or receiving an action.  However, this feature would be developed later on down the road, as there is still much more to do on the basic system.  If it were paperdolled, it would also require a massive amount of custom art work to reflect the different genders, skin tones, hair, armor, and possibly weapons.  So right now, that's not very high on my to-do list… as the game is no where near the point of drawing that kind of dedication from an artist.

Ideas on how to handle the player action menu when it is the player's turn for unput would be welcomed.  I was thinking of designing something like a menu wheel that pops up above their character or centered below the enemies on the battle screen, instead of the standard menu box.