Ok, I'm planning to make this game with a lot of fighting, but the weapons part is really bugging me. I don't want to make it like most games, where the weapons deal a range of damage, with a range of critical chances and accuracy - in games like that there's no variety, nobody would use a weapon that does less damage.
Besides, I want players to be able to craft their own weapons in the game, like decide how long the swords would be, how heavy it'd be, etc. The design has to be as simple as possible, but advanced enough to allow many different types of weapons.
So.. my idea is to give 4 different types of stats:
Damage
(basically split into sharpness and mass, sharpness multiplies damage, but is nullified by armor)
Range
Balance - Unbalanced weapons are just as accurate as balanced ones, but when they miss, they provide more of an opening to the enemy
Speed - Faster weapons mean not just more hits, but more likely to slip into the enemy's opening.
Swords would be good overall, which why everyone loves them.
Axes have high damage and good range, but poorly balanced and slow. Halberds have better range, but poorer balance.
Pikes have ultra-high range, but poor in all else.
Daggers have excellent speed and balance, but do little damage and are very short ranged.
And so on.
The hard part is not hard-coding it! I want users to be able to make them, but I have yet to find a formula that doesn't break my brain. Also, I saw how much time my creature editor saved me. ( http://smuzani.googlepages.com/cbtcredit.zip ) Since creatures in the game are auto-calculated, it's shortened my game design and coding by a few months!
So, just toss in your thoughts, hopefully I'll get some inspiration from a comment
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
A 100cm sword is effective in multiple ways. (That's just the blade length, not the overall sword length.)
If you strike the enemy with the tip, at the full 100cm, the sword will be hitting faster. There'l be less mass to it, though, so it's probably not going to do much damage. A shallow wound.
At the 66cm mark, you've got the balance of speed and mass. It'll be a moderate speed and cleave into flesh, maybe even bone.
At 33cm, it's going to be much slower, but have more mass. You'll be at close range, but you're likely to actually cut through bone.
At 10cm, it'll be the slowest, and have the most mass. The caveat is that a lot of blades are actually very dull if not blunt at this mark; You'll give them a nice concussive force, but you're not going to be cutting through much of anything. You might get away with cutting a piece of paper! (If the blade does have a dull edge instead of a blunt one, it would probably have comparable damage to the 66cm mark, if not somewhere between that and 33cm. A shallow, gaping wound.)
And then the various sword shapes come into play, as well as the edge's characteristics. Is it a serrated edge, or partially serrated? Is it sharp or blunt? Double-edged or single-edged?
The problem there is that it's far from the way it works IRL, and far from the way it should work in order to be fun. Too many variables. Axes would apply a different technique, stabbing the sword makes it much more efficient at range than close up. I'd like more of a one-size fits all system. Something like damage is caused by weight*sharpness*torque or something.
I know there's an easy solution to this. Heck, the solution is probably so obviously easy that after I implement it, big companies are going to use the same formula. I just can't see it. The creature system I used for this game also uses a stupidly simple concept, and it allows you to utilize all the cool martial art moves I took from books, like breaking the shoulder, kneeing the guy in the solar plexus, stabbing a dagger into his eyes.
Once I could get this done, it's all easy programming
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
Here are some concepts/variables. You don't have to use these, but they may give you an idea:
Mass - mass of the entire weapon; blade, hilt, pommel, etc. Mass is grams and such, but you can get away with using weight and pounds, unless you're going into space or something.
Range - length of the weapon, as a range. Using the sword example, it would be 100cm from handguard to tip, so that's 0-100. A 100cm hammer on the other hand, might only be 70-100, because that's how much of the length is occupied by the head of the hammer; 0-70 would just be the shaft, which could be implemented as being a separate weapon area, each with their own characteristics.
Sharpness - the sharpness of a weapon is essentially just the amount of pressure (force/area) it exerts. A sharpened edge would have a small area, so it would exert a high amount of pressure. A blunt object would have a greater area, which would be a low pressure. Expressing sharpness as pressure would be silly, though, as the force behind the area would be calculated separately which could result in a sword being duller than it should be. Instead, sharpness should be expressed as the area.
Resiliance - The more resiliant an object is, the more pressure would be needed to break it. I think it only takes 14psi to cut skin, so a sword that could apply 28psi would have no problem while a hammer that can only do 7psi would.
Hardness - Harder objects can scratch harder objects. A hammer can shatter a diamond, but a sword cannot cut it. A sword can cut skin, but a hammer cannot.
Hardness, sharpness, and resiliance all go hand-in-hand with each other, so it may be hard to come up with a way for hammers and swords to act differently should something be omitted.
Ready Speed - how long it takes to cock the weapon back, to ready it for bringing it into the target.
Swing Speed - how long it takes to bring the weapon from ready position into the target.
You could use different values for each weapon for the various ways to use a weapon, or you could use a simple formula to do it for you. A stab may be 0.25x speed (400% faster) while an overhead club might be 3.0x speed (33% slower). You'd need different formulas for both ready and swing speeds though; A stab may take 0.75x to ready, but only take 0.25x to "swing."
Swing Angle - a predefined angle for the various ways to swing a weapon, in 180°. A chop may be coming in at 90° while a slash at 25°.
Vector Angles - on a 360° scale. Where an object starts from and ends when swinging. A backhand swing might start from 200° and end at 0°, for example (travels 160°).
° = degrees (in case it appears as a ? for you)
Force - Mass*Speed. The faster an object goes, the more it's going to hurt. The smaller the object is, the easier it will be able to go in.
Pressure - Force/Sharpness. Also known as sharpness.
Torque - Force*Swing Speed*Vector Angle
Damage - Pressure*Swing Angle*Torque
These are all just concepts, though. Take what you want from them, maybe add something of your own in. Hopefully by reading this you've got some brain juices flowing now.
I have to say, I think most games use that system for a reason.
Just because something is realistic, it doesn't mean it's going to make a fun game. It's not fun trying to figure out the difference between a 4' sword a 3'6" one - it's tedious.
Not only that, but game balancing will be a nightmare - like it or not, there are going to be some combinations of length, weight, etc that are far more effective than others. Nobody would use other weapons in the same way as you say nobody uses the weapons that do least damage in a normal game.
If you're being strictly realistic then nobody would ever use any dagger for example. Think about it - would you seriously want to take on somebody with any kind of sword/axe/spear etc armed only with a dagger? I think not.
The actual weapon characteristics will depend on the combat system itself - whether it's a conventional RPG or a diablo-like game, or something else, so it's hard to speculate too much.
However, I think you have some good ideas.
Personally, I'd go with this kind of setup...
Damage - I'd make weapons inflict 3 kinds of damage - stabbing, slashing, and impact.
Armour - different armour types block differing amounts of damage - eg. chainmail is good vs slashing but not stabbing. Impact damage is not blocked by armour.
Character Stats - I'd make some weapons have a roughly fixed effectiveness, whilst others are better when used by more experienced characters. The damage caused by an impact weapon such as a Warhammer would be largely determined by the strength stat of the character wielding it. A dagger on the other hand will be no more effective in the hands of an experienced character.
For example;
Damage = (X * Strength) + Y
Hit% = (X * Skill) + Y
Defense - swords for example, would be effective at blocking slashing attacks, as the can parry a blow. A warhammer on the other hand, would be too heavy to block attacks with, but also could not be blocked with a sword.
Perhaps also, Weapon Triagle - to help balance the strengths of different weapons, you can use something like the weapon triangle found in Fire Emblem games, in which Lance > Sword > Axe > Lance. It's kind of like rock-paper-scissors.
Honestly, I think anything more complicated than that will not just be a waste of your effort, but will actually make the game worse.
That triangle is just a graphic representation of rock-paper-scissors.
Daggers would be more effective in the hands of an agile character. With a dagger you're not going to be trying to take something on directly, you're going to be using it to get a quick strike in at a vital part, or to throw it. They might also be suited to blocking a sword for striking with another weapon.
I think the reason why most games have simple numerical damage is because it's easier to create. In the end their systems are often damage-armour=health loss, which shouldn't be true. It's all about simple numbers and math, and it shouldn't be. There are different types of armour that will react differently to different weapons. You can't take a sword and smack someone in plate armour with it and cause them to lose blood/vitality/HP, because plate armour is designed to protect against that. You might cause a sufficient impact to bruise the area underneath, but you're not going to be mortally wounding them.
I did say the triangle was like rock-paper-scissors
The same concept is used in many other games.
Fact is, people still play it after hundreds of years probably, so the basic concept can't be that bad.
Blocking sword attacks with a dagger? Rather you than me...
Their only real strength is that they could be concealed / thrown (at something unarmoured).
I think *part* of the reason why games have simple numerical damage is because it's easier to create. I think it's more important that it's easier for the player to understand. Unless the game is specifically designed to be some kind of "sim-blacksmith" the player isn't going to want to micro-manage weapons. Hopefully there are more exciting things for them to be getting on with - slaying dragons, rescuing damsels in distress, overthrowing a tyranical ruler etc.
If you try and get technical you're going to end up with a 2d version (since it's MMF) of "Die By The Sword". You've probably never heard of it, which is probably something to do with the fact that it was utter crap.
The other problem is that in real life, it's actually *really* easy to die. A single powerful blow would be enough to kill you, and lighter blows will either have no real effect or will partially disable you, such that you will be unable to properly defend yourself. The average game player doesn't want to be killed by one or two lucky hits, so this is why "Hit Points" were invented.
Let's suppose you want to have enemies of varying combat ability...
Consider a feeble little goblin armed with a dagger, fighting a knight in full plate armour. In reality (or as close as you can get whilst still allowing the existence of goblins), the only way the goblin could possibly even hurt the knight, is by stabbing him in the head. This of course, would be fatal to the knight. Granted, the odds of this are very low, but it can happen, and the player won't be happy when it does. Basically, it's "all-or-nothing" and you're turning your combat engine into a lottery. By using hit points, you allow weaker enemies to do some damage, but not enough that they're a serious threat.
Also, regarding how plate armour works - I did suggest the 3 types of damage as a simple way to handle this.
Plate = good vs slashing & stabbing
Chain = good vs slashing
Leather = bad
etc...
Hammers = impact, therefore equally good against any armour
Swords = slashing / stabbing, therefore good against leather, ok against chain, and bad against plate
Spears = stabbing, therefore good against leather and chain, and bad against plate.
etc...
It's relatively simple, and the player actually understands what's going on.
Adam Phant, the basic weapon system already has 26 variables, which is a game designer's nightmare. I'd like to throw away most of those. The basics like Mass(Momentum), Sharpness, Hardness are definitely staying. Angle may also stay in there as an accuracy measure, but it's simplified to only be the multiplier resulting from the sine or cosine (from 0 to 1, with most of it being 0.5 to 1).
I might look at resilience and the swing/ready speed concept though. They do what I need.
Sketchy, I know, but the typical RPG concept doesn't suit my game. My game is about gritty survival. I'm going to hide most of the variables from players, so they can just have fun, but it should have an interactive cinematic feel. E.g. "A has a dagger, B has a sword. B breaks A's leg, A falls down, B tries to puncture A's neck, A rolls aside, then stabs B's foot. B aims for A's gut, but A predicts the blow accurately and deflects it, slighting the angle just enough for it to only scratch his rib."
It shouldn't be any more than what's necessary to do that. And as impossible as that gameplay sounds, I've put too many years of effort in trying to get it done, so I'm not going to scrap it.
Anyway, armor and damage have the formulas right. I'd post the formulas here, but they're fricking scary Getting the balance right for different weapons is hard.
In plain English, the concept is that you can't really dodge weapons, just find ways to deflect or block them to minimize damage. Swords to less damage to armor, because armor effectively blunts them. A mace still does almost full damage to armored units, but depending on the impulse force (less to padded armor, more to chainmail). Yes, there's instant death, but good warriors will be well armed and armored, and most of them have instincts which means that they'll be able to block a blow just by watching his opponent's movements. Legendary warriors will be able to sense the heat from their enemy's movement, and block a shot simply by detecting how he'll move.
It's also rock-paper-scissors, but with hints to what your opponent will pick
Edited by an Administrator.
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
Hmm. 26 variables seems like an awful lot. I can't even think of more than 10! It'd be hard to come up with a simple complex system that works for what you want that doesn't overly simplify it.
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