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Post by Bob on Mar 30, 2009 14:21:50 GMT -8
Hey. So, I talked to Fleck the other day. He said he's got a wild story about army to tell us when he gets back, but it'll still be another few weeks. So when he returns, things might change for The Arena, but for now, I'm takin' over!
I'm writing another program (yay!) for The Arena. It'll be much more accurate than the others (though still not exactly like playing a Final Fantasy). So I'm curious to see what you'd all like to see in this tournament. Lemme first tell you how this program is looking thus far.
Each person is assigned the following stats: Power, Defense, Evade, Accuracy, Magic, Magic Defense, Magic Evade, Speed, HP, MP.
I've already programmed a pretty fun CT bar, so speed is how fast until your next turn. So it's not just one-for-one this time. So now those hard hitters won't have quite the advantage on the quick guys.
Then, I'm going to give each character five potential abilities to use in combat. I'll give each ability SOME A.I., but not a ton. For example, I'll have a cure spell that is set to use when below 30% life (full on FF12 gambits style. <30% -> Cure).
So you get five slots. And I'm still not sure if I'll categorize certain abilities (so instead of "Cure" for an ability, have like "White Lvl. 1" and let you use Cure and Poisona or something), but I was wondering what you guys would like to see in the next tournament. What abilities, features, etc. I COULD try to program in some Limit Breaks, Trances, etc. for the characters that have those, but that might not be horribly fair for those characters that don't have those... So we'll see.
Anyway, the list of abilities is: Cure, Fire/Blizzard/Thunder/Water, First Strike, Defend, Half-MP, Advance, Deathblow. It's a small list, so please add to it. Even if you have an absurdly hard to program thing to add, you can still suggest it. I just might decline it.
Oh, and as a final note: I'll likely include the ability to be a front-row or back-row fighter and possibly will include even equipment to buy/use in the fights (I'm goin' all out).
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Post by nobodyspecial on Mar 30, 2009 16:51:01 GMT -8
Hmmm, well its time to give my 2 cents as per usual.
Abilties, hmm, having each of the four elemental magics seems a bit redundant, unless you give each spell specific functions, i.e, fire being strong, lightning having a short term paralysis, blizzard having a slowing effect and water being damage/time. So, instead of having four different spells, just have like a spell labeled like, elemental spell. That would be cool though to give each element different properties, it would provide different advantages to each character's stats and such.
Deathblow is a nice ability, and half-mp is a must for any magic user. First Strike seems more like a waste as it will only have an effect at the very beginning of battle, after that its useless, and unless you're terribly slow, it won't provide a sufficient enough bonus. Defend is good, though I'm not too sure what advance does, though I'm assuming its a offense based ability which trades defense for power increase, so it seems good.
Green Magic I suggest leaving out, it will make too much of a power gap between those who have it and those who don't. Doom would be a good ability to consider. High MP cost, a fair counter for death, it would make a nice gamble ability and I don't think it would be too hard to program.
As for the trance/limit break issue, I think one of the 5 ability slots should be a special ability that is unique to each person. Beatrix would get Climhazard, Noctis would get a teleport attack thing, Steiner would get Shock, Vivi would get Flare, Kuja would get Ultima, Irvine would get Pulse Shot, Jecht would get a Jecht Shot style attack that uses a fireball for say, Sephiroth gets Super Nova, Zidane would get Grand Lethal, etc. Each attack would have more or less the same attack power with maybe minor differences and would be used at like, 10% health remaining. Vincent could get like a Transform ability that makes him say, 20% stronger all round and recovers a little health (otherwise he wouldn't get a chance to use it, being only at 10% health).
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Post by Bob on Mar 30, 2009 19:45:26 GMT -8
Actually, I wrote fire/blizzard/thunder/water like that because yeah, I'm lazy, so my program just chooses one of those at random. I'm thinking maybe in the future I'll mess with doing each one differently and having like, add-on equipment that'll make people weak to certain things or absorb things or whatever. But the reason I'm avoiding that at LEAST for now is because it'd be some pretty killer A.I. to code. I either have to have them too knowing or too stupid. So like, either they just automatically know that somebody is weak to fire and cast it constantly instead of blizzard, which they absorb (for example), or I have them be stupid and randomly cast any spell. Either solution doesn't seem too great... So yeah, for now they just cast one of the four. They deal the same damage.
Advance is about what you're thinking. They drop their defense to deal more physical damage.
With First Strike, it actually CAN (and has in some tests) decided the outcome of a close fight. So it does help. And if you're making a character that's pretty simple, then getting that first in could be helpful. But also, I'm thinking I might do like FF9's ability equipping, so your characters will have a certain amount of ability points and each ability is a different cost. So yeah, First Strike would be a cheap one.
I DO want to do some really extreme coding, which means status ailments and green magics. But that'll be hard.
Oh, and I love the idea of Doom. Death would be cruel, but Doom could be really fun. I'd probably do Doom in the sense that they'd get a certain amount of turns until they lose, but I'd probably make it a high number and give it a moderate chance that it'll miss...
With limits, yeah, I'm kinda thinking that we can do something for everybody. Not sure how all would work though. FF6 and FF8 are easy: can't use limits unless you're low on life. FF9 maybe after a certain number of hits you've taken you'll trance. FF7 and FF10 would be kinda tricky, but might just mimic FF9 for the most part...
It'll require some planning (though I'd totally have a blast doing it), but I'm going to probably make this program for Arena battles against monsters, too. Then you can fight them to level up before tournaments. But I'm thinking that you can get some form of credits from The Arena for ability points and equipment points to use certain things in battles, depending how many victories you have against monsters. I'd put a like, one fight per day per character cap or something at least though...
OH, but getting to the maybe fun part. I'm thinking that maybe I'll make up an ability tree so that like, if you want something more advanced like Death Blow, you'll need to "buy" other things along the way. One being First Strike. So then people will use lesser abilities just because they may not be able to afford the others or something... I think it could be fun. Perhaps as you guys suggest more abilities, I'll draft up an ability tree.
So think up some more abilities ya'll would like! 2x Cut maybe? OH! Drain and Osmose would be killer fun! Break Skills.... Umm... I think I'll put Chakra/Pray in there so that there is SOME way to get MP back (besides Osmose).
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Post by countlieberkuhn on Mar 30, 2009 20:11:05 GMT -8
Very impressive. Keeping tabs of what every character's stats, skills and equipment is could be tough though. We'd also need to make sure no-one goes over their limits in any way too.
I'd love to see break skills in there, since Steiner loves 'em so much. Would also like to see magic like haste and slow in there. I don't think it would be unbalanced, since pouring points into those skills would mean neglecting strength or magic power, so the speed advantage would even it out for users of that magic.
Poison magic would be good (and actually useful, as opposed to real FF), and boost for magic users, like Vivi.
Another idea, maybe, is to use the 'slots' for passive abilities, like HP up or MP up, which could provide a 20% boost to the relevant stat. I'm imagining everyone's abilities in the form of materia with 5 slots to spend, correct me if that's a bad analogue though.
Also, status ailments! (I see ellone as a status spammer, relying on screwing her enemy over with debuffs and weak hits rather than overpowering strength/magic power). She would just LOVE sleep, confuse, blind, silence, etc.
Ooo and regen is a must I think! Healing a small amount of hp per action taken, could be very good for characters looking to win by attrition.
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Post by countlieberkuhn on Mar 30, 2009 20:14:29 GMT -8
I'd just like to add that i'm rather excited about this. All of us 'gambiting' our heroes in different ways to see who comes out on top.
I think there should be limits on how much training on regular arena monsters you can do though. Like 1 or 2 battles a week, and if you lose, then you get no experience, and have wasted an attempt. Could be fun for the risk takers among us to try and get an advantage by taking on something pretty strong, but failure would result in being left behind.
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Post by Bob on Mar 30, 2009 22:56:13 GMT -8
Thanks. I hope it turns out as good as it sounds. So, one more offer that I COULD make is that I could allow everybody to create their person's gambits, essentially. So you can actually say when they should cure and this and that....
Oh, and what I think would be really cool is that I'll probably have all players (that want to participate) give me stats like in blitzball, and those stats don't change. But then for the tournament, for each opponent you can PM me with the abilities and equipment that you want your character to use, and I'll plug them into the program. So basically, you'll have no idea what to expect the other person to use.
But stats must stay the same. So you can always figure that if you're fighting a magic user like Lulu, her stats will be magically inclined, so you should prepare to defend against that. And stats don't change, so even if Lulu tries to swap up and use all physical abilities, she probably can't inflict much damage with physical attacking... Also, HP & MP stay the same. They're a stat too. Just to make sure we're clear.
I really foresee using magic levels, so like, White Lvl. 1 instead of just "cure." Mostly because of status magic. It'd be fun to (as Count said) have a "status spammer" but if you only get five slots, then that'd be kinda lame. Especially if there are some good passive skills you want/need on your status fighter. And yes, Count, I plan on having passive skills. HP+ and MP+ will be in there.
I'm going to update the Mallboro week (sorry, I'm a day late), then go work on some fun ability trees and such. I think this could be almost as much fun as playing an actual video game once I get it going...
*is on a quest to make Mallboro the most awesome RP evar*
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Post by countlieberkuhn on Mar 31, 2009 7:12:13 GMT -8
Alright, sounds cool. Are we going by the concept of stats having a maximum of 255 and hp/mp of 9999?
Not that i'm suggesting we have stats that get anywhere NEAR that high, quite the opposite, but it would be simpler if stats followed their usual proportions. Just with all our characters having a starting level of 5 or something, just so everything is low. With low stats its harder to find exploits in the system (there will be exploits, i'm sure of it), and even if you do find said exploit, that stats will be low enough for it not to make too much of a difference. It'll also provide a large scope for levelling up.
Of course, Bob can of course completely disagree with me there since he's making it, but thats my input!
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Post by Bob on Mar 31, 2009 9:45:24 GMT -8
I'm still working out the stats, but I think I'll have no cap on stats, but really, you've gotta distribute pretty easily or you'll be creamed. Right now I still have some randomness, but damage right now is power - defense, which means If we did have a max of 255 for stats and a max life of 9999, it'd be REALLY long to fight that since max damage is umm, well if they have no defense, then 255+(whatever 255/2 is)... So many many attacks.
Right now for stats, I'm thinking that everybody will have 100 accuracy right off the bat. You CAN add or subtract to it, but not very much... I'll probably have stat minimums or something, and accuracy will be like 90 or 95 or so. But power, defense, speed, magic, etc. will all be chosen with one set of stat points, while HP/MP are another. I'm thinking around 150 or so for HP+MP. So if you don't want magic: HP = 150. If you do, maybe more like HP=100 MP=50 or so... I'll also release info on how much spells will cost.
Sorry if this post is weird and disjointed. I gotta go do some things, but keep brainstorming, ya'll!
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Post by bloodfestbutterfly on Mar 31, 2009 14:02:21 GMT -8
Wow, this looks awesome! XD Can't wait to see the results. Can't wait for Fleck either; it's boring to have derelict employees. Wyvern, what's keeping you?
By the way, you forgot one for the list of abilities: heart! GO PLANET!
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Post by Bob on Mar 31, 2009 14:47:17 GMT -8
When your powers combine, I am Cap- Wait, just Heart? Psh, your power alone does nothing... Poor Ma-Ti.
I talked to Wyvern a while back. Around when he said he'd return. I... didn't think he'd get to posting, despite him saying he would. He's flying to Japan I think... today? He's going to school there for awhile. So yeah, he probably didn't get to posting because he was packing, then flying, then moving in... I wouldn't expect him to post for another couple weeks... It's a race to see if Fleck or Wyvern returns first!
You ARE allowed to fire his characters if you want. You're acting manager, so if you wanted to... I'd fire them, but maybe I'm just mean like that...
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Post by nobodyspecial on Mar 31, 2009 15:21:12 GMT -8
Well for damage you could modify the standard FF damage formula.
[[[[[Str^2 / 16 + Str] * [265-Vit]]/256] * Power] / 32] * 2 = Damage
That'd be the FF formula for damage so... lets assume Strength and Damage are the same value, Vitality is just Defense. Then just add a 10% variation factor and viola. Oh by the way, the ^2 is squared. Then since we want low amounts of damage, we just mod the formula a bit, take off the *2 and make it /64 and we got a decent low damage dealing formula.
[[[[[Str^2 / 16 + Str] * [265-Vit]]/256] * Power] / 64] = Damage
Lets say there was 35 strength vs. 20 defense, you would get approx. 414 ~ 457 Damage with a 5% variation factor. Or if you really wanted to make things as low as you intended, like HP/MP = 150, then just add a /20 or something to the end of the formula, so the end product would be something like....
[[[[[Power^2 / 16 + Power] * [265-Defense]]/256] * Power] / 64] /20 = Damage
OR
[[[[[Power^2 / 16 + Power] * [265-Defense]]/256] * Power] / 1280] = Damage
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Post by Bob on Mar 31, 2009 15:58:16 GMT -8
Ah, thanks! I might use these. I might add a bit more randomization into it though, but I'll play with it.
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Post by bloodfestbutterfly on Mar 31, 2009 17:48:49 GMT -8
Mmm, I don't want to fire them because when he DOES post, he does so with all characters on a rather regular basis. When I have him, we flourish. When I don't, well, I can bother Skullboy since I see him every day and we can plot things.
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Post by seflask on Mar 31, 2009 18:41:33 GMT -8
We plot things anyway, or at least mention various ideas. A good portion of our conversations centers around Mallboro and character psychology.
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Post by Bob on Mar 31, 2009 23:34:30 GMT -8
Hrm... Gonna have to play with this formula more in the morning. I found there's a slight problem in it: power != strength. So I'm getting some pretty small numbers as well as some absolutely gigantic numbers. Gotta rethink a few of these things...
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