Battle Systems

[LTN Games]

Surprisingly I been developing games in RM since only April ( I think) and I understand everything about it now, from eventing to scripting, to even drawing my own graphics and parallaxing etc etc but surprisingly one thing I am not 100% about is the battle system, and mainly the database, see my first game was an abs, and my first game I started still never made it to the battle system.
So I'm here to ask all you lovely folks about how you like to proceed with a battle system, do you start with the lore of your enemies then write down every spell and attack and include the damage dealt. Do you carefully plan out the elements you will have in the game? How do you determine the formulas for each spell you have, and how would you go about balancing things properly. I'm curious on how you do it, because right now I feel like I'm all over the place for my Sock Quest game, which forced me to slow down and get out my pen and paper(Word document lol) to write down all my skills and all of my enemies before I proceed any further.

So let's hear it folks :D

 

[Orange Ball]

Wow.

 

[Rise Evil]

For the enemies, I try to go with the environments, depending to the living era as well (middle age, modern, futuristic, post-apocalyptic etc.)

Then depending the size of the enemies and its weight, I adjust the strength according the strength of the heroes. (Let's say by example, it's a battle tank, and when we reach this enemy at level 5 minimum. Our heroes's average strength is 70 and defense 50. So I adjust the Tank to have 80 Atk and 85 (if not 90) defense. So like that, it's slightly tanky. If the battle is too short, add more HP until it meets your expectation etc.)

For the skills and damage formula, this one is kind of a pain, but I try to make it so when your stats increase, you'll deal enough damage. Also if possible, you can make each weapon having their own damage formula by using the Weapon Skill Plugin (very useful when you want to make weak powered daggers that hits more than once, using atk and agility in the formula to deal physical attacks. So a slow warrior will deal puny damage by using daggers while a fast user with little to decent atk will excell at it.) :D

 

[Adlw]

Before, I made little case of the importance of the combat system. It was very basic, now with the possibilities of MV, I say to myself that I should really think of everything in the combat system. For formulae I think of dealing with my guides of solutions of certain games to adjust better any that. Later I use Word so as you but I discovered this software "Articy-Draft" it is dear but level reference creation it helps enormously (for write all your skill, perso, etc).

 

[Rise Evil]

But they should have created a Famage Formula Calculator that could have been integrated with the engine. So when your create a damage formula, you can check the average damage you're going to get instead of always calculate in your mind constantly.

 

[eivl]

How do you determine the formulas for each spell you have

So what you should figure out is how the scaling of your game should feel.
If you make your spells linear (fn=n*X) and you do the same with the monsters, your character will never feel any different when playing.
So to bypass this you would have to create gear, items, armor that gives the player more power, this way your character will feel more and more powerful with every upgrade.

you can turn it around, have items and armor do almost nothing and have spells increase in power.

But for the the best part you would like to do both.
Have monster difficulty be polynomial and have the combined power of weapon and skills be what balances the game.

do you start with the lore of your enemies then write down every spell and attack and include the damage dealt. Do you carefully plan out the elements you will have in the game

You should do this yes, well at lest in my hones opinion. Not damage dealt, that is not relevant, the only thing that is important is that your fights are relevant.

There is no point fighting monsters that you can not loose to (except in the beginning maybe), so with that in mind it all depends how you want to make your fights.
You can have the monster change power or type while you are leveling, so at level 1 you fight a bat and at level 100 you fight an undead demon lord of the blood god Kale'sh.
Another way of doing it is to have regions with different levels of mobs, and when you are significant over powered for your region have the chance of combat be reduced.

So, you see, to craft monsters you do not have to think about game balance, it will sort it self out later. But you should have it planned out before you begin.

This is not the only way of doing it, there are pros and cons to everything, and if you want i can dust of some old school books and in detail tell you about every method system development.

One way, that i do not recommend is the "Waterfall method" just start, do not look back, do not change anything, keep doing, plan as you work! ;)

 

[LTN Games]

Wow, yea that makes complete sense to me. It makes the player think in a more wider prespective, instead of ":oh I'll just use these spells here to defeat the cave boss" it will be " I need to buy this weapon, which will increase my magic power, and I will need this armor to increase my defense so I can defeat this cave boss". Then of course I'll make sure I bring in my elements accordingly for weak points.

One way, that i do not recommend is the "Waterfall method" just start, do not look back, do not change anything, keep doing, plan as you work! ;)

Now this is something I'm really good at lol but I have been slowly moving away from this style of game developing, I now write things down, plan ahead a bit. Though I always go back to change things if I don't feel it fits. My first game Subject Zero was done in a week using the waterfall method lol and imo and a few others it's quite a fun well developed game.

Thanks for your suggestions, cheers :D