Adventures in AR: Combative
Time for another post where I talk about something I want to make. Those never go particularly far, but I'm hoping this one will actually help me get my thoughts in order. Lately I've been thinking a lot about the combat system for ARventure and I think I've got a competent design in mind for it.
My first thought for the combat system was to build it into the node-based quest system. Players would choose to attack or flee or whatever in the same way they may choose to open a chest or check for traps. This could work, but it would probably be a bit more complicated to implement, more difficult for quest builders to work with, and not nearly as fun as a standalone combat system.
Initially, I planned to basically copy the combat system from the older Pokémon games. It's fairly simple, works well enough on a touch screen, and is not especially art intensive. However, at the heart of it, the strategic aspect of Pokémon games revolves around the rock-paper-scissors type match ups and players choosing Pokémon from their team to counter the opponent's. Since players will only control their character in ARventure, this sort of system isn't ideal. Furthermore, I wanted to create a system that works well for a single player, while also offering interesting tactical opportunities for multiple players.
With that criteria in mind, I took inspiration from a few other games and came up with a concept I'm pretty happy with. The basic idea is still very much rooted in the Pokémon system, but with a twist inspired by Darkest Dungeon. Keep in mind I haven't actually played Darkest Dungeon, or watched any gameplay. I simply always liked how the player and enemy parties were all on the battlefield at the same time, but characters were "safe" behind their allies. That led me to create a 'queue-based' combat system. The player's party and their opponents are arranged into a queue, sorted by their speed stat. Each party member selects their action at the same time before the start of each round, then executes the action when it's that character's turn in the queue. After a character performs their action, they move to the back of the queue. The character at the front of the queue is the one who receives any attacks the enemies perform while the character remains at the front (unless the attack specifically targets a different character). The fastest character at the front of each of the two queues will act first and the speed is compared each time a new character comes to the front. Thus, if an entire team is faster than the character at the front of the opposing side, they will all attack before the slower character gets to act.
Now, you're probably (not) wondering where could the strategy possibly be in this system, considering players don't choose the target of their attacks. That's where Talents come in. Talents are a special type of action that have a variety of effects. They might take the form of attacks with bonus damage, debuffs to enemies, or buffs to allies. More importantly, however, many Talents will have effects that change the queue order of either the player's allies or the opposition. Some Talents will have increase priority that moves the user to the front of the queue, while others may draw an enemy from the back of their queue to the front. This will allow players to manipulate the combat match ups to take out a healer hiding behind a tanky warrior or allow a heavy hitting ally to get a shot at a squishy, speedy enemy. We'll talk more about Talents in a separate post, so stay tuned for that.
To close out, here's a quick and dirty mockup of what I have in mind for the combat system:
Very Pokémon-esque, but I think this shows what I'm going for. I'm avoiding full blown character art by using a sort of 'token' with the character's portrait. Attack animations will be as simple as the weapon the character uses flying over to hit the enemy. But that's something I'll decide on later. Additionally, for the sake of the mockup, I'm using UI elements from the Kenny Assets UI Pack, but I'll probably end up using my own artwork in the end. As usual, nothing is final, everything is subject to change, yada yada yada. But I feel this is a very promising start.
My first thought for the combat system was to build it into the node-based quest system. Players would choose to attack or flee or whatever in the same way they may choose to open a chest or check for traps. This could work, but it would probably be a bit more complicated to implement, more difficult for quest builders to work with, and not nearly as fun as a standalone combat system.
Initially, I planned to basically copy the combat system from the older Pokémon games. It's fairly simple, works well enough on a touch screen, and is not especially art intensive. However, at the heart of it, the strategic aspect of Pokémon games revolves around the rock-paper-scissors type match ups and players choosing Pokémon from their team to counter the opponent's. Since players will only control their character in ARventure, this sort of system isn't ideal. Furthermore, I wanted to create a system that works well for a single player, while also offering interesting tactical opportunities for multiple players.
With that criteria in mind, I took inspiration from a few other games and came up with a concept I'm pretty happy with. The basic idea is still very much rooted in the Pokémon system, but with a twist inspired by Darkest Dungeon. Keep in mind I haven't actually played Darkest Dungeon, or watched any gameplay. I simply always liked how the player and enemy parties were all on the battlefield at the same time, but characters were "safe" behind their allies. That led me to create a 'queue-based' combat system. The player's party and their opponents are arranged into a queue, sorted by their speed stat. Each party member selects their action at the same time before the start of each round, then executes the action when it's that character's turn in the queue. After a character performs their action, they move to the back of the queue. The character at the front of the queue is the one who receives any attacks the enemies perform while the character remains at the front (unless the attack specifically targets a different character). The fastest character at the front of each of the two queues will act first and the speed is compared each time a new character comes to the front. Thus, if an entire team is faster than the character at the front of the opposing side, they will all attack before the slower character gets to act.
Now, you're probably (not) wondering where could the strategy possibly be in this system, considering players don't choose the target of their attacks. That's where Talents come in. Talents are a special type of action that have a variety of effects. They might take the form of attacks with bonus damage, debuffs to enemies, or buffs to allies. More importantly, however, many Talents will have effects that change the queue order of either the player's allies or the opposition. Some Talents will have increase priority that moves the user to the front of the queue, while others may draw an enemy from the back of their queue to the front. This will allow players to manipulate the combat match ups to take out a healer hiding behind a tanky warrior or allow a heavy hitting ally to get a shot at a squishy, speedy enemy. We'll talk more about Talents in a separate post, so stay tuned for that.
To close out, here's a quick and dirty mockup of what I have in mind for the combat system:
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| The gang takes on a group of highwaymen |
Very Pokémon-esque, but I think this shows what I'm going for. I'm avoiding full blown character art by using a sort of 'token' with the character's portrait. Attack animations will be as simple as the weapon the character uses flying over to hit the enemy. But that's something I'll decide on later. Additionally, for the sake of the mockup, I'm using UI elements from the Kenny Assets UI Pack, but I'll probably end up using my own artwork in the end. As usual, nothing is final, everything is subject to change, yada yada yada. But I feel this is a very promising start.