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Post by bloodfestbutterfly on Apr 1, 2009 7:29:16 GMT -8
There's a new BS with a Captain Planet reference. My day is made, Bob. Thank you.
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Post by Bob on Apr 1, 2009 8:47:40 GMT -8
You're welcome!
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Post by nobodyspecial on Apr 1, 2009 16:21:11 GMT -8
Hmm I guess I didn't take into account that power and strength are diff numbers... well in that case, if you are planning to use weapons as well as other equipment, you could give the power value a value based on their weapon. Or just make it something like, a random integer between 15-25.
By the way, just got through reading the latest BS and well... damn, nice work, best one in a long time. Keep up the good work as usual.
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Post by Bob on Apr 1, 2009 21:32:03 GMT -8
Thanks about the BS. I enjoyed writing it, too. It's been so long since I've written anything...
As far as that equation, I DID notice I was using it wrong (had a couple parenthesis in the wrong spots), but I'm also figuring out how to properly use all these numbers. I'm just gonna play with things for a while. I found a couple things about FF equations, so I just might have a very FF feeling game.
Oh, and one more thing I feel like proposing (though Fleck and my programming abilities will make the final call in the matter): if I could make my program work that way, would you be interested in attempting some other types of tournaments? Like two-on-two or some giant free-for-all? The free-for-all would definitely be the easiest to program (if I write this program correctly, I could just randomly pick targets and add in more players...), but perhaps in the future...
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Post by Bob on Apr 1, 2009 23:39:18 GMT -8
Hey, NS. I have a question for ya. In that equation you gave me, I learned that strength!=power (weapon), right? So do you by chance know how armor factors into the damage equation? I figure since str and pow are different, vitality and defense (armor) should be different too. But only Vit is in that equation. So what's the point in wearing armor then? Just curious if you know, cuz I'm trying to figure out how to factor an armor score into all this...
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Post by bloodfestbutterfly on Apr 2, 2009 4:59:36 GMT -8
Sure, I'd give it a shot! Free-for-all sounds fun, though I'd wind up humming Ultimate Showdown every day.
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Post by Bob on Apr 2, 2009 10:01:00 GMT -8
Haha, I was thinking Super Smash Bros, but Ultimate Showdown works.
...of ultimate destiny.
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Post by bloodfestbutterfly on Apr 2, 2009 12:31:13 GMT -8
Actually, Dissidia's looking more like SSB than that...Have you seen the trailers for that? A-may-zing.
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Post by nobodyspecial on Apr 2, 2009 15:10:18 GMT -8
Ah yeah vit and armor stats. When I pulled up that formula I had forgotten that some Final Fantasies don't have an actual armor value, the one I pulled up was the Final Fantasy 8 formula. But in essence, if you plan to incorporate armor scores into the formula well, I'll pull up a couple other formulas to look at any possible variants (like for an added armor value) and see what I find. Otherwise though, it ought not to be too difficult modding the formula a little to incorporate armor scores.
Well there would be two ways of doing it, one being the obvious and simple one, simply make the armor add +x to the defense score, then its a matter of manipulating the code to account for the added maximums put into place by the armor, i.e. a max defense score changing from 255 to 255 +(max. armor value). You said you weren't putting in any stat caps, so by that same coin I would assume there is no damage cap, however the formula given is made from a system involving a max damage value so if we hope to use it's formula, the program would have to abide by similar rules. If we assume no character will achieve stats above say, 200 though, then the cap of 255 will work just fine. Armor value being fused with defense value would work, though overall damage dealt will be less, so unless you like the numbers you get from it, then you'd have to either increase [power] or decrease [armor]/[defense], if you get what I mean.
So the gist of that being, we could combine defense (vitality) and whatever bonus we get from armor into a single stat and not change the formula at all, but doing so will make an imbalance in damage and defense, so you'd have to make the power stat for everyone a bit higher. But otherwise that would work just fine
The other way to do it would be more complicated, below is the formula I was last gave you, I dunno if you changed it too much but we'll see.
[[[[[Strength^2 / 16 + Strength] * [265-Defense]]/256] * Power] / 1280] = Damage (with a 5 ~ 10% variation added at the end)
So, if we want to make another separate stat for bonuses provided by armor (not too sure why you would want to). Well to be honest, I'm no math genius so it to add another factor in and not alter it too much would be difficult to do, but I'll try. Okay, so... well I made a mistake the first time calculating it (all those damn parantheses threw me off). 1280 is too much of a division number first off, my bad. 32 sounds much better. So...
[[[[[Strength^2 / 16 + Strength] * [265-Defense]]/256] * Power] / 32] = Damage (with a 5 ~ 10% variation added at the end)
Okay, to simply this formula greatly, we take out the essentials.
Strength * (265 - Defense) = X / 256 = Y * Power = V / 32 = D.
X, Y, and V are simply variables to represent different number outcomes for each set of equations.
That's not at all the same formula, but the gist of it is this, because the the first set of equations determines Strength, the second set is defense, and the third set balances it into damage using power. If we want to add Armor to it, we can either add armor into the third set along with Power, or we can mix it into the defense set, logically, mixing it with power makes more sense as Power is weapon strength. So we just change it a little.
Strength * (265 - Defense) = X / 256 = Y * (Power - Armor) = V / 32 = D.
Basically this changes it from this to this.
Strength/Defense Power as balancer
to
Strength/Defense Power/Armor
So in this way, strength and defense go head to head, and power and armor go head to head. but the way the formula is set up now it won't work correctly so we need to balance it a bit more with some more factors. This is because (power - armor) =/= 0, and must be a real number.
So to fix this problem we change it to this: [[[[Strength / Power] / Armor] * [Power [[265 - Defense] /255 ]]] * Power] Which works to an extent, so then the final formula is as follows.
[[[[[Strength^2 / 16 + Strength] * [265-Defense]]/256] * [[[[Strength / Power] / Armor] * [Power [[265 - Defense] /255 ]]] * Power]] / 32]
More or less anyway, but its the best I could come up with right now. But really that was just making the formula a lot more difficult and complex for no real reason at all. Trust me, I would just add the armor stat to the Defense stat and make the formula use the sum of the two numbers. Or just make armor add to the defense stat. Tis much easier that way.
Well other formulas used are quite a bit different it turns out. Final Fantasy VII's is so complex its split into multiple formulas, I wouldn't bother with it. IX uses levels, which I don't know if we'll incorporate those into it but whatever. Final Fantasy X's is also as complex as VII's, especially since it uses damages up to 99,999+. So really VIII is the best one to be used. Especially since even in that game, it was difficult racking up 9,999 damage to any normal monster, even at maxed out strength.
So in conclusion, use this: [[[[[Strength^2 / 16 + Strength] * [265 - [Defense + Armor]]] / 256] * Power] / 32] = Damage
Then just add the 10% variation or whatever it is you want.
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Post by Bob on Apr 2, 2009 17:05:01 GMT -8
For equations, yeah, I'm gonna just play with things. One thing FFs tend to do (I think) is make more damage be affected by weapons and armor than actual power (to an extent). Like, a level 99 Cloud with the Buster Sword would do pretty similar damage to a say, level 30 Cloud with the Ultima Weapon (probably not exact, but you get the idea). I'd really like the game to more stress your characters by how you allocate stats and abilities than what equipment you're wearing. So yeah, I'm gonna try to make some equations myself, but the actual damage equation will ultimately be the one you gave me. I also (by searching your equation in google) found an equation to work for magic, so I'll be messing with that as well. And before I talk about something else, I feel I have to object about Dissidia. Sadly, as much as I've always wanted an FF fighter ever since Ehrgeiz hit arcades, I kinda think Dissidia looks like a piece of garbage. I don't care for the character selection, and I think the gameplay looks disgusting (though actually playing it COULD change my mind). I just see all the combos and fighting in the air DBZ style and I think back to every SNES and beyond's water levels and figure aerial combat is probably the same, so I hate that. Plus, many fights I've watched on youtube and such like.... They don't fight on screen. So often you can only see one of the two fighters at any given time, and that just... sucks for Player 2, ya know? So I'm just not a fan at the moment of Dissidia. I'll have to play it for myself though to really see if the gameplay is as bad as I think it looks... Anyway, back to the fighting game, I slaved over this project for the last couple days, so I hope ya'll like it. It's the magic tree for (part of) the ability tree of the game. mallboro.goatpen.org/arena/magicpaths.gif
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Post by Bob on Apr 2, 2009 17:15:51 GMT -8
I guess I could explain the chart, but I'm hoping it's fairly self-explanatory. Every tree starts with Black 1 or White 1, so you have to get those abilities. Then you can "level up" and have access to more abilities as you go, but remember: you can only USE five. But still, you'll need to "unlock" certain abilities in order to use others.
Perhaps the most important thing to note is that if an ability has two or more paths leading into it, then you must have unlocked both paths to use it. For example: In order to learn Arcane 2, you'd need to learn Black 1, Arcane 1, and White 1. That means Arcane 2 costs 3 skill points, but hey, you still learned some other cool abilities along the way. Down at the bottom for Recall and Dualcast are the hardest to unlock. I think each one costs around 18 points... I'm getting ready to write up the chart for the physical abilities soon. I don't think it'll require as much work as magic, but it'll have some fun things like Break Skills and such.
If you're wondering, then the skills listed in the magic section are the following: Focus: Increase your magic power slightly. Pray: Restore a small amount of HP and MP. Damage -> MP: When damaged, lose MP instead of HP (when MP is gone, the skill is nulled). Half-MP: Halves the MP costs. Recall: Randomly use ANY magic spell whether you've unlocked it or not (ability uses MP). Dualcast: Cast two spells per turn.
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Post by Bob on Apr 5, 2009 11:53:25 GMT -8
So I'm working on deciding what physical abilities should be in this. Any suggestions? Things you'd like to see that haven't been mentioned yet?
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Post by wyvernxk7 on Apr 7, 2009 19:47:15 GMT -8
2x-Cut, 4x-Cut (kinda like leveling up in FFIII gives you more cuts/attack) Mime Counter Junctioned to something Counterattack
Micro Missiles 1000 Needles Trick Stop
Matra magic
what does Deathblow do again?
Oh, and are Items N/A?
I know not all of those were physical attacks, but they were just thoughts...
I'm getting situated here, but I'll... be... back!
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Post by Bob on Apr 7, 2009 19:56:03 GMT -8
Hrm... 2x-cut I'll probably do. Mime I'm unsure since technically mime only mimes what your team does, and with one-on-one it's weird... Counter junctioned could get messy with code, so I'll leave it out (for now). Counter is already programmed. Tis fun.
I'm gonna leave most enemy skills out. I considered them, but I'm sticking with pretty traditional magics. Stop is programmed already.
Oh, and Deathblow is the one from FF7 where you either hit critically or miss... So not the smartest ability, but certainly a fun one.
And yeah, items aren't allowed (too messy). Instead, I've made all statuses have a fairly short duration since curing them might be tricky.
Glad to see you're gettin' situated over there!
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Post by wyvernxk7 on Apr 8, 2009 5:19:34 GMT -8
Well - mime would be useful for folks who rely on MP... it wouldn't cost them MP to mime their moves.
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