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Advanced Member
Joined: 9/10/06
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sorry for the misspelled words and bad grammar - Just trying to get ideas down to paper
PROJECT: RENDITION
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Author: Jordan P. Sleeper (Nikkon)
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Combat System (spell only)
The whole system is a little hard to describe but bear with me. To make things simple we have three types of combat in the game melee, gun, and technique/magic. Each of these types have a different way of fighting that helps balance the three of them out so they can all fight against each other with it being a toss up of whose going to win. Lets start with spell casting since this is where the original idea came from. When casting you will have your list of basic spell elements in a standard action bar located somewhere on the screen. To use a spell you will either hold the corresponding number pad button down and click your mouse or use your mouse to click the button on the screen. Depending on which button you use on your mouse to activate the spell is the hand that the spell will go on for your character. So click the left mouse button and the spell will go on your left hand. If you click both mouse buttons you will activate two spells of the same type on both hands. This type of activation allows the players to freely pick and swap spells to their hearts desire and provide the ability to mix and match spells and effects. For example, lets say that on one hand you have a fire spell, and the other you have a ice spell. Alone you have to ability to use both spells seperately, but what you could do is mix them together and shoot hot water at people or something along those lines. But I wanted to go further than that and allow players to truly be able to modify the base spells and come up with some unique combinations so I used what is called a focus meter. Think of the balance grinding meter from all the tony hawk skateboarding games. This works off the same concept but it has some differences. Both of your hands will have its own seperate meter for focus. This means that by using two spells you have to 'balance' those spells which is harder and that is the cost of using two at once besides the mana and energy costs. Each focus meter will range from 0 to 1000 but it won't have numbers on it, just ticks every 10-50 or so. When you activate a spell the meter will start in the middle and will look something like this:
[--------------||----------------] || = where you are in the bar.
if you let the || in the bar drop to 0 at any point during the spell the spell will be auto cancelled. With that being said you also have the ability to overload your focus meter by going to the highest end of the bar. Now you can cast spells using maximum energy but you have a chance of overloading and potientially causing some disasterous effect and damage to you and the people around you. when casting the || will start heading toward 0 pretty quickly but it will always go in the down direction on the bar never up. To make the || go back up you will have to either click or hold the corresponding mouse button. This will allow players to vary the strength of each spell so they can mix and match as follows. Take the fire and ice spell example from above. If you use both spells at the same strength then you get the hot water. If you up the fire spell to where its a lot stronger than the ice spells then you will get steam. Do you see the possibilities for this? Take the same spells and add modifiers to them and allow for multiple uses in combat. This also makes it where spell casting will seem less repetitive and boring since every spell something new can happen.
Now I didn't stop there because I hate the current mmo style of combat where you click a button and x happens for x damage and then rinse and repeat. I wanted more interactive and dynamic fights so When you click on your basic spell a runic icon will appear in the middle of your screen. Think of the alchemist symbols from full metal alchemist and you'll get the picture. After you click the spell you don't have to hold the action button anymore, the spell will stay active as long as your focus meter doesn't hit 0. Each rune will have a designated starting point for you to start tracing. SO you will have to get your focus meter to where you want it then click and hold on the starting point of the rune, this will lock that focus meter at that strength. from there you can trace the pattern of the desired level of spell you wish to cast. When done tracing you will get a confirmation that you did the spell correctly and then the next click with your mouse button will cast the spell in the direction of your mouse is pointing. You will not have cross-hairs as to eliminate sniping in the game. You will have to use your best judgements as to where to throw your fireball or whatnot.
Even though this sounds like a long process this will only take a second or two to complete depending on the level of spell that you trace. And just as another small note, all combat moves will take at least 1 second to complete. This allows the game to get away from the twitch based aspect and focus more on the strategic elements but it still fast enough to raise your adrenaline and get your heart pumping faster. And it just might help with latency on slower machines ;)
As a cool factor, when you are holding down your mouse button to trace the spell your arms will be linked to your mouse. So as you trace your characters hands will be moving in those patterns and seem like your are actually casting a spell. After you complete a trace of a spell and have it locked in, you must use it within 3 seconds or it will go out. This is to prevent people from pre-casting spells too much and unloading on some unsuspecting person.
When thinking up somethings that I would like to do in game is to take in more environmental effects. So if your character is walking in sand and moving very slow and you can cast ice spells. Then cast your ice spell and slide sorta like iceman from xmen and if your really in need of a getaway do the same thing but now turn around as your sliding and use a flamethrower fire spell on the ice and make a nice smokescreen of steam as you get the heck out of dodge. The next idea I would like to do is to use a gravity spell and lift up some of the sand then use a wind spell to spin the spell around forming a tornado. Once spinning, use a fire spell to super heat the sand to make it into glass shards and then attack people with a glass tornado of doom! More on how to link different spells together later as I'm still working out how to do that fluidly and to the point where it won't get to tedious.
Tell what you guys think about the system and any constructive comments on how to improve or how to add in linking of spells or anything of that nature will be more than welcome.
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