Battledome Alpha

I am looking for ideas for weapons, equipment, abilities, and drones for the Battledome. As you read in the previous blog, upon leveling up, your Battler is granted a random powerup, which takes the form of a weapon, equipment (which can have an ability), a straight-up ability, or drone (up to 3 drones max).

Before you can really brainstorm, you'd probably need to know what makes up a battler stat-wise, and what options there are for weapons, equipment and drones.


Who am I?

Here is a break down of the pertinent attributes of a battler. A drone is also a battler (but with the restriction of having no drones of its own, and not getting powerups upon level up).



What are all these things?
-HP: health. If this is zero, you lose.
-NRG: energy. If this is zero, you are stunned.
-ATK: attack. Base physical bonus damage.
-AGL: agility. Your turn speed.
-PHYSICAL, ENERGY, FIRE, COLD, ELECTRIC, SONIC, CORROSIVE are the different damage types. I can add more (if they make sense). Each battler, weapon, equipment, drone can have any combination of damage type and min/max damage amount. IE- a sword could have 1-6 PHYSICAL damage + 1-3 COLD damage.
-Damage types have a minimum and maximum range.
-Evade is chance to dodge an attack, resulting in no damage being done.
-Block is chance to block an attack, resulting in no damage being done.
-Pierce is chance to get through a block, resulting in a block being ignored
-Parry is chance to block an attack with a weapon, resulting in no damage being done.
-Intercept is like a preemptive counterattack. IE- while you are attacking, the enemy intercepts the attack before it lands, and counterattacks immediately.
-Accuracy (default 10000, IE- never miss) is chance to miss an attack.
-Critical is chance to do extra damage, based on critical multiplier
-Fumble is chance to do less damage, base on fumble multiplier
-Disarm is chance to destroy the enemy's weapon when you do an attack
-Stun is chance to disable an enemy for 1 turn
-Numberofattacks is the number of attacks.
-Lifesteal is a percentage of life stolen during an attack
-Energysteal is a percentage of energy stolen during an attack

Stat Growth
These are the numbers I have used in the latest demo, as a base. They give an idea of the scale of numbers I want to use....for now.

LEVEL 0 STATS

BATTLER	HP	NRG	ATK	AGL
Base	70	25	10	15
Fighter	70	25	15	20
Lithe	60	20	10	27
Brute	95	30	13	10
Crawler	85	37	8	12
Johnny5	66	50	7	15

*All battlers start at level 0 with a set of base values. Each build has its own tweaks to the starting values

LEVEL 0 TWEAKS

MODES	HP	NRG	ATK	AGL
Fighter	0	0	5	5
Lithe	-10	-5	0	12
Brute	25	5	3	-5
Crawler	15	12	-2	-3
Johnny5	-4	25	-3	0

LEVEL UPS
Each level up results in a fixed increase in stats. Each build has its own small fixed increments to each stat.

MODES	HP	NRG	ATK	AGL
Fighter	3	0	1	1
Lithe	0	0	0	3
Brute	6	0	1	0
Crawler	3	3	1	0
Johnny5	0	6	0	1

Here is the increases by growth type. Eventually, I want the user to be able to choose which kind of growth they want each level up.

GROWTH	HP	NRG	ATK	AGL
Balanced	6	6	3	3
Brawler	4	2	4	4
Tank	12	6	3	1
Specialist	2	10	2	4

Weapons

Weapons are used to increase your battler's damage output. Battlers start a battle with a cache of weapons, and can deploy them in battle. Only 1 weapon can be deployed at any given time. A weapon does not have to be deployed. Weapons can be deployed, undeployed, discarded, disarmed, or stolen. Weapons never run out of ammo or energy.



Here is what I have so far. Keep in mind I am just pulling these numbers out of my ass.
As a general rule for damage modifiers, I made melee weapons inherit 1.0 damage modifiers for all damage types, and ranged weapons inherit 0.0 damage modifiers except for that weapon's type, which I set the damage modifier to 1.5. So the Firevolt would have a 1.5 FIRE and 0.0 everything else.

WEAPON	Damage Type	Damage	Notes
Crab Hands	PHYSICAL	4-8	high intercept, high fumble, x2
Stun Baton	PHYS, ENERGY	1-6,1-4	chance to stun
Propelo	PHYSICAL	2-5	multistrike, up to x10 attacks
Vibrocutter	PHYSICAL	2-6	small knife, high retaliate, multistrike
Vibroblade	PHYSICAL	4-16	basic sword
Electric Mace	PHYS, ELEC	3-18,1-18	heavy damage, low accuracy
Quarium Whip	PHYSICAL	1-15	high disarm, intercept, critical
Sabre of Light	ENERGY	2-20	pure energy attack
Thunder Katana	ELECTRIC	1-25	pure electric
Charge Blade	PHYS, ENERGY	2-6	energy steal
Discharge Blade	PHYS, ENERGY	2-6	uses energy to inflict criticals
Stun-o-rang	PHYSICAL	1-8	multi target
Plasma Staff	ENERGY	5-15	high intercept, disarm, chance for 2x attacks
Drill Spike	PHYSICAL	8-28	high pierce, disarm
Nintendium Spike	PHYSICAL	12-15	pierce
Impact Hammer	PHYS, SONIC	1-36,4-6	high crit
Energon Axe	ENERGY	8-21	pure energy
Toxic Dagger	PHYS, CORRO	1-4,0-25	can inflict periodic damage
Frozen Fists	PHYS, COLD	7-9,3-4	cold damage, x2 strike
Sonic Disruptor	SONIC	2-7	target all
Chaingun	PHYSICAL	2-4	multistrike (x4 to x10 attacks)
Repeating Blaster	ENERGY	2-8	x3 to x5 attacks
BFG-9000	ENERGY	15-65	highly inaccurate
Sniper Rifle	PHYSICAL	12-24	high crit, highly accurate, piercing
Bio Rifle	CORROSIVE	3-30	periodic damage
Flak Cannon	PHYSICAL	6-24	heavy damage, target all
Shotgun	PHYSICAL	18-24	heavy damage
Shock Rifle	ELECTRIC	1-10	v.high crit, can stun
Laser Rifle	ENERGY	2-12	high accuracy
Missile Pod	PHYS, FIRE	5-15,5-10	x4 missiles, low accuracy
Firevolt	FIRE	5-20	Jet of piercing fire

Abilities
Abilities are special attacks that consume energy on use. Abilities can be granted by certain equipment, or just learned on their own.

The logic behind abilities are underdeveloped, and would be open to expanding their stats/modifiers/etc... to accomodate neat ideas.

An abilility can have completely custom logic in a battle, unrelated to any of the stats below. For example, Rust Gel (in this game) just automatically stuns enemy battlers AND completely disables their drones.



I only have a few abilities implemented, more as a proof of concept than anything else. These numbers were especially pulled out of my ass last minute, and definitely need refinement.
As a general rule, I made abilities non-parryable and non-interceptable. Damage modifiers were 0.0 except for their damage type, which was 1.5.

ABILITY	Damage Type	Damage	Energy Cost	Targets	Notes
Beam Cannon	ENERGY	15-40	15	Random Enemy	one time use, reduced accuracy
Flamer	FIRE	5-20	4	All Enemies
Rocket Punch	PHYSICAL	10-20	2	Random Enemy	small accuracy boost
Rust Gel	PHYSICAL	n/a	5	All Enemies	disables all enemy drones instantly, and stuns enemy battler.
Flash Freeze Bomb	COLD	5-10	8	All Enemies	high chance to stun, high accuracy
Shock-Kick	ELECTRIC	1-50	12	Random Enemy	also inherits PHYSICAL damage modifier at 1.5
Shockwave Pulse	SONIC	5-10	8	All Enemies	v.high accuracy, chance to disarm weapons
Flashbang	SONIC	0	2	All Enemies	v.high accuracy, v.high chance to stun

Equipment
FULL DISCLOSURE: I have not fully implemented equipment in the game yet. So it's the perfect time for your input!
I have a list of equipment I that I brainstormed from actual Battledomes we've held (plus a few extras). I put in parentheses the associated ability the equipment would grant.



QUESTION: can a battler have duplicate equipment? or maybe some of them could be duplicate? Having 10 E-Tanks could be cool.


Drones
Drones are special-case battlers. They level up to the same level as their host, but do no get powerups, and have their own custom builds and growth.

My thinking on them is that each drone would have either a single ability or weapon, and then just use that every time their turn comes up. They would have significantly less HP than real battlers (except for maybe a damage-sponge drone?). They would be very limited and focused in what they do.

A battler would be limited to 3 deployed drones in a battle. Right now, battlers are limited to at most 3 drones total. I might change it such that you get to pick which 3 drones to take into a battle from your stable.

I have made a Minibot, Turret, and Hoverdrone archtypes, but they don't do anything special yet. They don't even have abilities or weapons yet - they just mindlessly attack.

Ideas please!


Conclusion
So there you have it - all of my ideas and their implementations laid bare. The interplay of weapons, battlers, abilities, and drones is what will make this game fun. So help me make Battledome fun!

FULL DISCLOSURE
I haven't thought deeply on the subject of battle plans - that is, when it is his turn, how does a battler choose his action from his list of available actions?

I have (for the purpose of testing other system) implemented a rudimentary system that assigns a static priority to an action, and then using a random number, choose an action based on the relative proportions of the priorities of all of that battler's actions.

ie-
if a battler has 3 actions in his repitiore:
ATTACK := 40 priority points
DEPLOYATTACK := 60 priority points
DEFEND := 20 priority points

I will then choose a random number between 0 and 120, and then iteratively check
if rand < 40, do ATTACK
if rand < 100, do DEPLOYATTACK
if rand < 120, do DEFEND

That's it, and I am only telling you this just so you know where I currently stand. I need some brainstorming ideas because I am kind of drawing a blank on how to go about this, and in particular struggling with an effective way to change the prioritization of the moves based on the current state of the battle (like, if I already have a weapon deployed, I should lower my priority of DEPLOYATTACK, but if I don't, deploying a weapon should be a higher priority)

LockeZ already started pondering on this on my behalf

author=LockeZ
I was imagining the pre-planned strategies being done like setting your party's AI in Dragon Age: Origins or Final Fantasy 12. The player would create a set of conditions for different actions to be used, in order of preference, like:

1. If opponent's HP is below 20%, and beam cannon is not out of ammo, and energy is above 25%, attack with beam cannon.
2. If battle is long range, and own HP is above 90%, attempt to close to short range.
3. If energy is below 25%, attack with energy stealer.
4. If battle is long range, activate energy shield.
5. If minibots are present, attack with flamethrower.
6. If battle is long range, attempt to close to short range.
7. If shotgun is out of ammo, and minibots are not present, attack with martial arts.
8. If shotgun is not out of ammo, attack with shotgun.
9. Attack with martial arts.

This was just the first way my mind jumped to, and so I was suggesting the short and long range thinking that it would be easily possible in a system like this. Were you thinking of doing battle plans a different way? This way wouldn't really limit what kinds of actions you can add to the game; as long as the outcomes of those actions are also possible conditions, there's no limit to what the player can choose to do. After all, in FF12 the entire game was played this way.

I didn't consider letting the end user tweak their battleplan to such a great degree (I was toying with the idea of a more generalized instructions like "Fight Wisely", "Show No Mercy", "Play It Safe", "Be Erratic", and building out strategies automagically from there). But I do like LockeZ's idea. It's kind of like building out AI rule in RM2k3's monster database. It is a little more complex than I was anticipating, but maybe that's a good thing.

What are your thoughts on this?

Definitions:
Actors: battlers and drones in the current arena battle

Pseudo code
Set a 'threshold' variable equal to the sum of all of the actors 'agility'
Each actor has a 'readiness' variable, called turnpoints/TP, initialized to a random range of their 'agility' (50% to 150%)
Every cycle, add each actor's 'agility' (plus/minus 10%) to their 'readiness'
For any actor whose 'readiness' is greater than the 'threshold', add them to the 'turn queue', sorted descending from their 'readiness', and decrease their 'readiness' by the 'threshold' value
If there are any actors in the 'turn queue', pop them off the front of the queue and do their turn actions
Repeat the cycle until one of the battlers die

Actual code


You can test out the algorithm here: http://rpgmaker.net/games/5000/downloads/6676/


Thoughts/Concerns

I think the underlying logic of this turn determination algorithm is pretty solid. It allows for faster battlers to get extra attacks in versus slower opponents, and it will scale well for battles with multiple drones and battlers. There is no waiting for cycles to increment (beyond the time it takes for the computer to do some simple addition and comparisons) before an actor is ready (like in an ATB system). But maybe there are issues with it that I don't foresee?

I think the main issues the demo is encountering has more to do with the base stats of my predefined battlers and the range of my randomization. And also the value I set the threshold to - I made it the sum of the agilities so that it is scaleable to the relative agilities of the actors, but perhaps that was a bad idea? What else could it be other than a fixed value, or a multiple of the sum (like 2x or 3x)?

I think that tightening up the relative values of the battlers's agilities would help even things out, turn order-wise.

Are the random ranges I use for initialization and for each cycle a good thing to have? Are they too high or too low?

For reference, here are the base stats: