next »

[Craig Stern]

That is a huge problem, actually: fantasy tactics characters slipping on stairs. They could get hurt! I'll have Inane add safety handrails immediately.

[Craig Stern]

Well, that was surprisingly easy to add! Attacks that can hit at multiple ranges now deal damage depending on how far away the attack is targeted.

So, for example: the Bowman's regular Bow attack can hit 2, 3 or 4 spaces away. If it targets 2 spaces away, it deals full damage. However, if it targets 3 spaces away, it deals 15% less damage; if it targets 4 spaces away, it deals 30% less damage.

These same reductions apply to every attack with multiple ranges, not just Bow attacks. (For instance, the Spearman's Spear attack deals 15% less damage if it's thrown 2 spaces rather than hitting an adjacent space.)

I figure this imposes a nice little trade-off: players that want to deal more damage with their attacks need to bring their characters in closer, subjecting them to greater risk.

[Inane]

Ah, I haven't been on these forums lately
The reason for the perspective strangeness with the stairs is that the more floor they have, the more likely it is a unit's feet will happen to be on them. But for the handrail thing I could just make it so balustrades can come out of walls Characters just have to grip stone walls until they get near the bottom.

So, for example: the Bowman's regular Bow attack can hit 2, 3 or 4 spaces away. If it targets 2 spaces away, it deals full damage. However, if it targets 3 spaces away, it deals 15% less damage; if it targets 4 spaces away, it deals 30% less damage.

My dream army of all lizardmen is getting closer to reality Or... viability, I guess.

[happymonster]

Maybe the stairs could be replaced with a stella stairlift, to avoid any unfortunate slips. 

[Craig Stern]

Ha! Indeed. This could be the first fantasy setting ever conceived with handicapped access laws.

[Craig Stern]

I've been working on adding height (Z-axis) to the maps in the map editor; it's coming along nicely, though I'm a little concerned about how to represent all of its aspects in the game's chosen perspective. We'll have to see how it plays out.

Height will serve a few functions in the game; non-flying units will be unable to move or launch melee attacks directly from one space to another where there are large differences in height.

More interestingly, height will give bonuses/penalties to projectile attacks against targets at lower/higher elevations than the attacker. So a bowman that is situated higher than a target will get a bonus to damage, while a bowman situated below a target will get a penalty. Controlling the high ground will thus be extremely valuable.

[Spooner]

Be careful of making flying units into uber-pieces; so many games have been spoiled by that since being invulnerable to most of the opponent's pieces is more than a little advantage

The idea of making higher ground valuable for archers is good though. So much better when high ground has gameplay value rather than arbitrary point values (hills are often given abstract points values to make you take them, forgetting that armies take high ground because it is actually useful tactically :D). You might also consider giving that, or a similar effect, to those attacking up or down in melee too, such as attacking up a hill or stairs.

[Udderdude]

Another solution is to give the melee units a "Throw weapon" ability that lets them attack air units, but then they're unable to attack again until the next turn, or until they move near the unit they threw their weapon at.

[Craig Stern]

@Udderdude: Throw Weapon is an interesting idea; I'll keep it in mind.

@Spooner: I should probably mention that flying units will still be tied to the height of whatever tiles they're on: they won't be able to just fly up into the atmosphere to avoid being attacked.

Right now, melee units can always attack adjacent air units. Once height is added into the mix, melee units will still be able to hit them, except where there is a big height differential. The flying units will be able to attack non-flying melee units across a big height differential, but this is balanced somewhat by the fact that they can still be counterattacked, and that aerial units are extremely vulnerable to arrows and bolts.

I've been thinking about how Fire Emblem keeps players from simply overwhelming each other each turn, since a player can move all of his units on any given turn. I think the key is not just different match-ups, but the fact that virtually all units counterattack. As such, I'm strongly considering expanding* the number of units who counterattack. This would have the salutary effect of keeping flying units from attacking melee units with total impunity whenever they enjoy a big height differential.


*Right now, the swordsman can counterattack once per turn, as can the bowman. What I might do is expand their available counters to three per unit per turn, then give most other combat units a single counterattack per turn.

[Craig Stern]

Elevation editing in the Map Editor is now complete. (Elevation appears in a separate "layer" whose visibility can be toggled on and off.) The next step is to make elevation affect the main game; this will be more complicated, I think.

[Craig Stern]

I've been working furiously to complete Telepath RPG: Servants of God, which is why it's been a while since the last update. However, Inane has kept up with his crackerjack pixeling work, and we're just about done with all the game's tiles. In other words, it's almost time to move on to pixeling game's wide variety of destructible objects!

All of the following are in the offing, some of them with variations and some without:

Wooden Barricade
Spiky Wooden Barricade
Stone Barricade
Satchel of Explosives
Generic Item Sack
Solid State Shield Bubble
Flag
Table
Stool
Wooden Barrel
Standing Candelabra
Bed
Book Case
Boulder
Oak Tree
Evergreen Tree
Bush
Wooden Door
Barred Door
Steel Door
Wooden Bridge
Stone Bridge
Wooden Fence
Stone Fence
House Walls
Castle Walls

I dug out my most recent build of Telepath Tactics on Wednesday to test out on an indie arcade machine that some of us from Indie City Games have been putting together. I'm pleased with how it's coming along, but a few annoyances stuck out at me, so I took a few minutes to remedy a couple of gameplay issues that were bothering me:

(1) attacks against a character on a bridge (or standing on a rock, or in a tree) would previously damage both the character and the object. Now they just damage the topmost thing on the space (i.e. the character).

(2) engineers are now limited to only placing down one explosive charge or building one barricade per turn. (They remain able to build as many tiles of bridge as they have movement and energy to reach/build.)

Implementing elevation as something that affects movement and ranged attacks is going to be trickier than I first thought, and with TSoG's release coming up, I don't have the time to get it working just now. That's going to be top priority once I get back into developing Telepath Tactics, along with implementing item drops and character inventories.

[Craig Stern]

So, I took a little time today to code in a check that makes sure characters cannot move directly between tiles of drastically different elevations (unless they are flying). Thus, this fellow on top of the tower not being able to move straight onto the grass:



I took some time over the past couple of days to play through Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. I did this mostly because I really enjoy the game, but it also yielded some design ideas, particularly having to do with the challenge of handling different elevations in a straight-on projected viewpoint.

As with all 2D engines, this one represents higher (greater z-axis value) tiles as being higher (in terms of y position) up on the screen. This leads to some strange distortions. Notice, in the screenshot above, how elevated areas are separated from areas below them (on the y axis) by sections of wall tile. Not so the areas to the left or right, however; and as for the spaces that should be immediately above them on the y-axis, they are frequently obscured from view altogether.

Trying to account for the difference between y and z axis positions in a 2D projected view like this is no joke. Just look at how hard it becomes to judge distances properly in a game like Alundra! I'm not concerned with jumping puzzles here, obviously, but targeting enemies for attack who are on a different level of elevation becomes problematic.

In theory, a ranged attack from an elevated surface onto a lower surface should land one or more tiles lower (y-axis) to account for the height difference. Here, for instance, suppose a character is on the "X" and he has an attack that hits 2 spaces away. The targeting reticles would be displaced like so:



This works in theory, but quickly causes issues in practice because of the distortions I mentioned above: visible wall tiles separating higher elevation tiles from tiles below them on the y-axis, but not so for those above them, or to the left or right. Characters standing above a high elevation tower, like the one in the first screenshot, would be essentially immune from ranged attack.

Also problematic: how do I represent horizontal movement from lower elevation tiles onto higher elevation tiles? This is an especially thorny issue for flying characters, who can move freely regardless of elevation. What if a flying character moves from a space with an elevation of 1 onto a space with an elevation of 6? Do I have a shadow sprite separate from the character, then show the flying character ascending as the shadow moves straight horizontally? And dear God, won't all this be confusing for players? There has to be an nice, elegant way of handling this, right?

Which brings me back to Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. The way they handled the effects of elevation on moving and attacking was kind of brilliant: they said "screw it, we're just going to allow people to move and attack across different elevations as if there were no z-axis difference." Behold:



Even though it makes no sense from a geometric perspective, I find that it feels natural and fun while I'm playing. Therefore, I'll be following their example.

[ANtY]

Definitely tracking, forgot about this game when it was on 3rd page, what a shame!

[Christian Knudsen]

What's the point of the z-axis if you're just going to ignore it for movement and attack?

[Xion]

add some shadows cast from those towers, man! Shadows help readability immensely, and are also far too absent in your example of Alundra.

Also it's kind of disappointing that making elevations matter in attacks is so difficult. I've always loved it when height differences mattered, like being able to rain down attacks from elevated areas with virtual immunity, or making the tough decision to give up the high ground to save my skin.

What if there were other ways in which elevation mattered, such as giving certain characters damage or accuracy bonuses or penalties when attacking from a height relative to their target. For example, an archer attacking an opponent higher than them would get a damage penalty, while the elevated one would get an accuracy bonus or something. You could also have something where (I don't know if this fits with your setting) magic users are more powerful the closer to the earth they are (aka lower), so it might actually be beneficial for them to take the lower positions. Stuff like that.