Liberal Arts Major
Yesterday I said I would be reviewing the substantial changes to the battle system today, but first I have a short little blurb about the inventory, specifically about the spells section.
The Inventory
Other changes to the inventory include the display update and pagination. The landing/navigation page, give page, and drop page are all the same, however.
Architectural Changes to the Battle System
Before we get to the surface changes, there are some noteworthy behind-the-scenes things that I'll go ahead and explain. These were among the first large changes I made to the code, and they were perhaps the most needed.
1. The entire way a turn is evaluated has been changed. Previously, the "standby" actions would all be collected and processed in order of speed, then the "standard" actions would be collected and processed the same way. Under this model, spells that targeted whole teams would be "split" (think Judgment and Widening Slash) in the standby phase and a new action would be created for each of those targets to be processed in the standard phase (actions that duplicated themselves, e.g. Double Shot, worked the same way). This didn't work so well with negation, although it made some sense for spells like Divert or Scapegoat that redirected those actions - assuming the caster of the latter two went after the split-spell caster. Also, because of the way actions were collected, a spell couldn't add actions within the same phase, which is what necessitated the new actions finding their way into the standard phase.
This was all very complicated and messy, so I ditched that system and began treating actions discretely. That is, the system now loops an arbitrary number of times, each time picking up the next action ordered by speed and phase (preserving the intended functionality of the standby/standard distinction). When there are no more actions to choose, the looping stops. Under this system, actions can be added on the fly and split spells like Judgment are now impervious to redirection and will only be negated as a single unit, which makes them slightly more powerful.
2. Originally I had conceived battles and spells as objects (in the OOP sense of the word), but that plan fell through when I realized I was restricted to PHP 4, the object model of which I knew/know very little about other than that it sucks. So, way back when I first started coding SS, I made the decision to use an if/else structure to evaluate spells as opposed to calling them as functions. Over time I realized this had been the wrong call, so as part of this update I've switched to the function model. This necessitated rewriting the way the game interacts with/processes spells, in addition to rewriting every single godawful spell already in existence. This took a while. Also, I haven't tested all of these obviously, so be on the lookout for bugs, some of which may or may not delete your whole team.
3. NPC enemies now actually know spells and use items (except mounts, for now) in the same way as player characters. Also, when they die, they aren't immediately deleted as they were before, so they can revive themselves and so on.
4. When Void was originally created, the idea was batted around to have it hide/erase spells that shared characteristics with the spell it negated. This, along with the awkwardness of spells that couldn't be negated or redirected, really highlighted a problem with the system, namely that the game itself had no way to tell what a particular spell does. To ameliorate this problem, I've added a tag system: now each spell is accompanied by a number of tags describing in general terms what the spell does. So a spell like Negate might be tagged "damage, magic, negation". Some tags are also functional. For example, a spell that's tagged "inevitable" can't be negated. (Aside: tags won't all be added by airtime, nor will all spells be tagged.) Tags don't appear in the spell's description, but they will appear in the library entries.
5. I was going to change the way items like Herb would work in battle, but I never got around to that, so now they just don't work at all. =(
Mechanical Changes to the Battle System
There are also some note-worthy mechanical changes:
1. NPC enemies are now located either in whole regions or in particular fields. If a monster is located generally in a region, there'll be an invitation to ".: Battle :." in every field in that region that is otherwise empty. At some point I'll also add random encounters maybe.
2. Poison used to be treated by categories. So, Poison Sting would inflict the weakest poison available, but something else would do something more noteworthy. This system was stupid and has been done away with. Now, poison values are literal and cumulative, meaning a "poison X" effect will cause a character to lose X HP per turn, while a second "poison Y" effect would cause that character to lose X + Y HP, and so on. Other status effects were planned but abandoned due to time. Also abandoned were "fading" (Stealth effects) and spell hiding/erasing (see the talk about Void above), which, although are implemented and theoretically work, haven't been updated to work with the new system and may not be entirely functional.
3. Pierce effects like Smash have been changed to take DEF/MDEF into account if the target is defending. Defending itself has changed but to be honest I forgot how. It's better now, regardless. Empyrial Cuspidated Bulwark 4 lyfe.
4. If an item was unequipped during battle, it will be re-equipped after the battle ends. This feature was originally planned out for mounts, which were supposed to be unequipped when they died, but I don't know if that happens to be the case anymore. Looks like I'll be as surprised as you will!
Feature Creep
In additional to the mechanical changes above, I've added two new features to the mix, which is a good deal less than I had planned to initially. Somehow, having to rewrite every spell kind of took the innovation out of me.
Stamina, Exertions, & Exhaustion
This is a little idea I shamelessly stole from the Lord of the Rings TCG (where else?) that adds an additional element of balance, a new way to measure out damage, and a new status sort of.
Stamina is a new procedural stat that's calculated as follows:
stamina = floor ((MAX HP)/100)
So a character with 30 HP would have 0 stamina, a character with 120 HP would have 1 stamina, and so on. An exertion is a sort of cost that reduces a character's HP by a quantity determined by its stamina:exertion = floor (HP/(stamina+1))
If exerting would kill a character, that character is exhausted and can no longer exert. So, stamina is equal to the number of times a character can exert if it starts with full health.(Here's an example. Suppose I have an ally with 67/123 HP. It has 1 stamina, so exerting costs 123/(1+1) = 123/2 = 61 HP. It can therefore exert once, leaving it exhausted with 6/123 HP. If it had started with 60/123 HP, it would already be exhausted and it wouldn't be able to exert anymore.)
On a slightly different note, a procedural stat like stamina is any stat calculated from other stats (procedural because it has to be constructed on the fly in order to take into account changes in other stats). Because stamina is so simple and it's currently the only procedural stat, I haven't listed it in the stat page yet. As more procedurals pop up (like evasion and weight, both of which were cut early on and might not even show up for that matter), I'll start adding them in.
Territories
The other major new mechanic is also the identifying mechanic of Tier IV, although it will be spread into other classes as well.
This idea came about prior to the class system when I was trying to figure out what the Explorer class Kenri (or Scorp or somebody) had proposed would actually do. Some field-changing effects had already been introduced in the form of Submerge and family, but I thought that was unsatisfactory. Also during this period I was toying with the idea of putting characters on a coordinate system and having them move around to attack and so on, but this idea was abandoned because (a) it would have increased runtime and coding overhead a fair bit, (b) it would have been excessively complicated from a usability perspective, and (c) it's not clear if it really even adds anything desirable to the game. But I didn't discard the idea entirely: instead, I kept the idea of a "grid" in the form of territories.
When a battle starts, twelve territories are created with the characteristics of the field the battle occurs in (i.e. sea in the sea, swamp in a swamp, land in the plain sections of the overworld). Spells can further create and destroy territories, while others can conquer or liberate them. On their own they do nothing, but spells can get bonuses depending on whether a territory with a certain characteristic exists, the number of territories with the characteristic, the number of conquered territories, the number of free territories, the number of territories period - and the list continues. Field spells like Submerge don't affect the territories, however, but the field as a general entity (they're treated as enchantments, after all).
This idea is presently in its infancy and not a lot of spells will be around to take advantage of it, but it does open up a fair bit of design space and I don't think it's too burdensome, so we'll see how it plays out. My biggest concern is that it's not very interactive, but neither are enchantments, and anyway this is a problem that's imminently solvable maybe.
Next up...
The last preview concerns the quest-event model and will be up sometime tomorrow. The game itself won't be up at midnight, though, because I want some more time to add things; it'll be up noonish MST on Friday. There's no rush, though. It'll still be pretty empty.
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~ Ogordemir ~
"The sciences have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." ~ H.P Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
Editor
-_-
I'm also sort of confused about what exerting actually does/is used for. <_<
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"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Liberal Arts Major
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~ Ogordemir ~
"The sciences have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." ~ H.P Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
Editor
Sounds interesting.
Predix: The Martyr class is centered around this mechanic.
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"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Message last edited by Kenri of the Yuri on 12/30/2009 at 09:37:27 PM
Liberal Arts Major
Nah, the Martyr class just up and kills itself.
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~ Ogordemir ~
"The sciences have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." ~ H.P Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
Liberal Arts Major
You know, it almost would have been fair if it had gotten the enemy too, the spell was Armageddon after all, so it makes sense.
But they were untouched and so I lost the battle, that was just adding insult to injury... or non-existence, as the case was. >_>
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Liberal Arts Major
Rename the class to Jihad and I'll make five of them.
+++
"Enough is enough! I have had it with these monkey-fighting snakes on this Monday-to-Friday plane!" - TV Edited Snakes on a Plane
Liberal Arts Major
yeahno
___
~ Ogordemir ~
"The sciences have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." ~ H.P Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
Editor
It could be both if you removed that class' limitation on not being able to exert if it would kill them! <___<
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"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Liberal Arts Major
It could be!
But it's not.
Speaking of which, there needs to be a counterpart to this mechanic that allows the character to be exert itself to death. In the LotR TCG this was called wounding as opposed to exerting, but I have that word in mind for something else. Thoughts?
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~ Ogordemir ~
"The sciences have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." ~ H.P Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
Liberal Arts Major
I don't know if it quite fits, but I like that word.
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Liberal Arts Major
It's on the same order as "exert": I don't think "enervated to death" is a workable concept. :\
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~ Ogordemir ~
"The sciences have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." ~ H.P Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
Liberal Arts Major
Succumb?
As in they succumbed to their accumulated injuries?
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Liberal Arts Major
Maybe I should just say forced exertion, or "force an exertion". That might work!
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~ Ogordemir ~
"The sciences have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." ~ H.P Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu