• Add Review
  • Subscribe
  • Nominate
  • Submit Media
  • RSS

Gameplay: Enemy Types

  • unity
  • 12/09/2015 07:40 PM
  • 7069 views
Hello everyone! :D First off, you guys have shown a ton of enthusiasm and been super helpful with feedback for the week since this gamepage launched. Huge thanks for that, and for everyone that's subscribed! Seriously! It's been amazing! ^_^

Today I wanted to talk a little bit about the gameplay in Weird and Unfortunate. Instead of magic, there are psychic powers, and they don't exactly conform to the old fire/blizzard/thunder kind of powers, so I initially struggled with how to do weaknesses and strengths. I wanted to make sure the player generally knew what was useful on what enemy.

What I came up with was a system where every enemy has a "type." Here are the enemy types:



Each enemy has their type displayed before their name for easy identification. Shout out and thanks to Red Nova for doing the coding for me to get that to work right. Here's an example of how it looks in game:



"That's all well and good," you may say, "but how does that help me tell what each enemy is weak against? Is there a chart I have to memorize?"

Nope! Instead, every move tells you what types of enemies it works well (and poorly) against!



However, there is a catch. The last class of enemies is Unknown. This simply means that their weaknesses and strengths don't show up on moves. You'll have to figure those out for yourself! Many of the Unknown types are bosses, so you'll have to experiment a little to find out what works well against them.

This system is still undergoing testing, so I may be tweaking it a little, but so far it seems to be working well. Any questions, comments or suggestions are very welcome! ^_^

Meanwhile, I'm still putting together the early areas of the game, but things are going well. I'm also drawing all the icons and animations, which takes a bit of time at first. Here's a sneak peak of some healing animation work!



Thanks for checking this out, everyone! Talk to you soon! ^_^

Posts

Pages: 1
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I really like those labels. Though, you'll have to excuse me if this system reminds me somewhat of the Human/Beast/Undead/Phantom/Dragon/Evil delineations used by Vagrant Story.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
Haha, I completely forgot about that! Yeah, it is somewhat similar. ^_^
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
Looking good! I'm especially curious about how the Unknown class will work in the game. As long as battles consist of a variety of enemy types, this would discourage spamming the same moves over and over again.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
LOADS OF ELEMENTS but having a handy guide always helps! Are all anti-creep skills bad against armor/spectres, or is it per-skill?
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
author=Red_Nova
Looking good! I'm especially curious about how the Unknown class will work in the game. As long as battles consist of a variety of enemy types, this would discourage spamming the same moves over and over again.


Thanks!

author=Craze
LOADS OF ELEMENTS but having a handy guide always helps!


I hope I didn't go overboard. ^^;; Time (and testing) will tell, and I can cut some of the types out if I need to.

author=Craze
Are all anti-creep skills bad against armor/spectres, or is it per-skill?


It's more per-damage type. For example, all Creeps are weak to bash, stab, and Terror Psi attacks, while all specters resist all physical attacks but are weak to all psi, etc. So there's sort of an element system at play, but the types are short-hand to what's weak against what, if that makes sense.

This is all new territory for me, so it's all being tested and messed with at this point.
Interesting... *takes down notes* XD
Is the player told what each actor is strong or weak against?
Oh, and what does the ATK 100% mean? That all its damage is based on ATK?
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
author=karins_soulkeeper
Interesting... *takes down notes* XD
Is the player told what each actor is strong or weak against?


By Actor you mean the player characters? I'm still deciding on that. They'll probably be shown in their status page descriptions if I make ally weaknesses a big thing.

author=karins_soulkeeper
Oh, and what does the ATK 100% mean? That all it's damage is based on ATK?


It's to show what stat the move draws from and how much damage. So like a weaker move that did ATK 75% but stuns would be 0.75 * ATK stat for damage, and a powerful psi move might do MIND 320% which would be MIND stat (what I'm calling MAT) * 3.2 for damage. ^_^
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
What was the term that the old RPG Makers used for this? I mean, I'm going off vauge memories of TsuK at the moment (which was a scale from 0-10, rather than a strict percentage), but, yeah.
Certainly a good idea! Call me a little skeptical, though, but "Spectral", "Mystic" and "Nightmare" don't really sound particularly different from each other; are there any strict distinctions between the three?
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
author=NTC3
Certainly a good idea! Call me a little skeptical, though, but "Spectral", "Mystic" and "Nightmare" don't really sound particularly different from each other; are there any strict distinctions between the three?


Yep! Spectral are ghosts that generally like to inflict status ailments and are weak against psi but strong against physical.

Mystics are mage-like monsters who prefer damage-dealing psi attacks, and are just the opposite of specters in terms of weaknesses, they are strong vs psi but can't stand physical attacks.

Nightmares are rare monsters who generally embody fear and have few weaknesses. They use dangerous Terror psi on the party.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
Yeah I was gonna say, in the vernacular they seem interchangeable, but they have REALLY different meanings! (Much like, say, insects and arachnids and annelida.)
I like the idea of having types in addition to having the unknown type. I think that'll help the gameplay alot!
Ah, I'm glad it shows the monster's types. Games that make you guess based on how the monster looks can be so frustrating (because sometimes it's not something that makes any sense)

Sounds like it has a lot of potential to be fun! I like the idea of 'Unknown' type.

Will monsters ever be double-typed? Like you have an Armoured-Creep, so bash's advantage and disadvantage neutralize? :Oc
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
author=Gourd_Clae
I like the idea of having types in addition to having the unknown type. I think that'll help the gameplay alot!


Hooray! :D I'm really hoping it'll all work well in-game. Thanks Gourd! ^_^

author=MakioKuta
Ah, I'm glad it shows the monster's types. Games that make you guess based on how the monster looks can be so frustrating (because sometimes it's not something that makes any sense)

Sounds like it has a lot of potential to be fun! I like the idea of 'Unknown' type.

Will monsters ever be double-typed? Like you have an Armoured-Creep, so bash's advantage and disadvantage neutralize? :Oc


Thanks! :DDDDDD

And I don't know about double-types. That... kinda explodes my mind, as having 8-9 types is already a lot XD Though, then I could have things like Robo-Centipedes and Ghost-Velociraptors, which is pretty tempting. :3
author=unity
Robo-Centipedes and Ghost-Velociraptors


I zero in on the important things. (But seriously, better to stick with whatever your scope is and not fall to such glorious temptation.)
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
I'll stay strong (or make those enemies anyway but force them into a single type :P)
Really like how that typing is done. Made me self conscious about making types seem too random now, haha.

Also, is this game inspired by Earthbound/Mother series? If so, I greatly approve of that.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
author=zDS
Really like how that typing is done. Made me self conscious about making types seem too random now, haha.

Also, is this game inspired by Earthbound/Mother series? If so, I greatly approve of that.


Thanks! :DDDDD

And yes, this game is very much inspired by Earthbound, from design and style decisions to the modern setting and main character with a bat and psychic powers. However, there's a lot of other inspirations and ideas going in, so I'm not sure how actually "Earthboundy" it'll actually feel in the end.

If you're interested in other games with Earthbound inspirations, I highly recommend checking out Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass, a game in production by Housekeeping that is looking to be amazing, and Hanging On, a game that is currently on hiatus but I also love to pieces and hope will one day be completed ^_^

Hmmm, maybe my inspirations that lead to this game could be the subject of a future blog? We'll see :D
@unity, Sooz: Yep, that makes sense. To get a bit more into the numerical side, how many enemies per type are you planning to have, on average?

@ZDS: I would also second unity's recommendations. Hope they get completed one day as the gems they're meant to be!
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
author=NTC3
To get a bit more into the numerical side, how many enemies per type are you planning to have, on average?


It's looking like eight to ten per type right now, but that's a really rough estimate, as I'll add a couple more enemies to an area if I feel like it'll add diversity to the enemy parties. Also, some types are rarer, so you're probably not going to see eight different Nightmare types while you may see more Creep types since they're more common.

Numbers are subject to change as I shift stuff around and figure out the right scope of the project. While I have everything outlined, I may need to trim it (or possibly add to it, but that's less likely) to fit the desired experience.
Pages: 1