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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsBattle in the Drum of Every Heart (brave class prototype! :O)
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Author Topic: Battle in the Drum of Every Heart (brave class prototype! :O)  (Read 40859 times)
Loren Schmidt
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« Reply #20 on: December 12, 2008, 01:36:59 AM »

Michael-
These sprites are so cute Shocked! This is a fabulous concept. I love the whooping idea, I think that would make me laugh every time I played.

Minor suggestion-
I think your background is competing with the characters a bit, especially when a character with a black outline stands on dark green. Maybe flat colors with outlines would be a better fit for this game. The background has a great style to it, though!

What about doing a splitscreen version, or even a shared screen version as a sort of prototype? Don't bite off more than you can chew, I want to see this succeed! Smiley
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Nate Kling
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« Reply #21 on: December 12, 2008, 08:03:14 AM »

Im really excited for this game but I was wondering if you were planning on having all the classes available from the start.  I think it would be really interesting to have only two classes available in the beginning of the game.  The players must use those weaker characters to go out and fight for resources which in turn builds teepees that allow the teams to spawn as new and stronger classes.  Opposing teams would then be able to destroy your teepees.  This would create struggles over resource areas as well as causing teams to have to defend their teepees.  Just another random thought is that it would be cool if when a character was killed he turned into a ghost of a bird or some animal as reincarnation and ran/flew away.
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« Reply #22 on: December 12, 2008, 09:09:59 AM »

 Kiss
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JLJac
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« Reply #23 on: December 12, 2008, 09:29:48 AM »

I think the black outlines on the characters are a little out of place. I think either you should not use black at all, or use it in several places, it's not really... harmony for me when you see black spots here and there and everything else is a bit paler. Also I think you should lower the contrast and the saturation a bit on the background, making it a bit more peaceful to look at.


This is really not my kind of art, but I have tried to tone down the background a little, and also added black outlines to the platforms to indicate that they are gameplay relevant objects.


All your ideas are wonderful. The classes seem like they will all be very fun to play as.

I think the way to make the Brave interesting is to simply make him pretty kick-ass. Let him move with normal speed, give him pretty much health and let him be very powerful in melee combat. Also, let him be able to jump fairly high, no double jump but a single powerful leap to get close to the enemy. People will play the other classes anyways, because they are awsome. If the Brave is good at most things and pretty standard/all around he will be great for beginners to get into the game. You will eventually play other classes either way, bacause you want to get their awsome features and it's better for the team play if there's a little variation.

About the shaman I want you to reconsider his abilities. You have given him pretty standard magical powers, but I think it would be more awsome if you moved away from standard sprity spells and focused more on nature magic. Here's my suggestion for his abilities:

Staff(Ordinary melee attack, low damage)
Control animal(Or taking the shape of an animal?)
Rain(Helps the cultivator)
Heal(Only close range, since it's herb medicin rather than healing magic)
Curse(Puts the stats of a certain character down. The fun part is that the longer the distance is between shaman and cursed the weaker are the effects. This makes it hazardous to the shaman who is weak in close combat, and promotes teamworking with a Brave or a Bullrider)
Lightning(Requires a lot of energy, but is really powerful. Kills everything within a certain range and can start a fire)

Only suggestions Smiley

I'm really looking forward to seeing more of this. It certainly is awsome!



« Last Edit: December 12, 2008, 01:01:27 PM by JLJac » Logged
michael
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« Reply #24 on: December 12, 2008, 10:57:22 AM »

momo my idea was that spirit animals were strictly supplementary (and mostly placebo), so that idea might involve them too much

chutup if they are purchased then one would be them before hand and be able to select one of them before incarnating. if the purchasing idea is scrapped, that could be placed wandering throughtout the map for lucky players to find. the idea is that each one would be helpful to every class, but some more than others, but hopefully each one could support different playstyles.

sparky when you say flat colors with outlines, you mean if the guys have black out lines then the background should have flat colors? maybe i should post a psd so that people can mess with colors!

caliber i definitely like the idea of teepees, or some sort of RTS element. im kind of hesitant of tiered classes because of my experiences in savage2 and tremulous where lesser classes would just get ripped up a majority of the time. though maybe we could balance it out. my solution was the single chief on each side played by the player with the most points.

jljac if think thats a good direction for the brave. make him just a solid, good class. and i definitely agree with you on the shaman, he should be much more nature oriented. i really like the curse idea we need more good abilities like that. oh and i like the third layer of trees that you added!

the environment and readability i think this is a subject where i may differ greatly with many people, and its also very possible that im wrong. but i dont think that levels need to be always 100% readable. im not saying that they should be utterly unnavigable, but i feel like a certain amount of uncertainty could be interesting and challenging. i feel like it would help strengthen the idea that we're running through a thick forest. readability is definitely very important, but i also think it can be used as a challenge. i also believe that most readability issues are eliminated with motion and a little bit of time. and then it just boils down to color preferences. and then its completely fine to want gentler colors. id still really like to have customizable palettes.

next move while we're discussing these various important issues, im going to try and make mockups of other areas. then what i'll really need help in is transforming these mockup ups in to feasible tiles and levels. part of the reason im working on this is because i feel very weak in the tile department and id like to learn how to build levels. i'll upload some psd's and if people feel inspired we can start creating tiles!
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Craig Stern
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« Reply #25 on: December 12, 2008, 11:16:32 AM »

This looks promising! You mentioned that you want this to have strategy elements. One suggestion: have some classes be more effective against others "under the hood." Rock-paper-scissors, in other words. So shamans do very little damage to scouts, who do very little damage to braves, who do very little damage to buffalo riders, etc.

By the same token, you might want to think of ways to encourage teamwork by making certain combinations of units highly effective against other units. E.G. Tomahawks do very little damage against a buffalo rider on a buffalo, unless the buffalo's already been ensnared by a cultivator's plant. A fully-charged arrow from a scout will knock a buffalo rider off the buffalo, also making it vulnerable.

Just something to think about.
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JasonPickering
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« Reply #26 on: December 12, 2008, 12:15:56 PM »

what program are you using for code?
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michael
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« Reply #27 on: December 12, 2008, 01:36:46 PM »

no ones coding anything yet. unless someone really wants to start prototyping (Well, hello there!) i wasnt planning on trying to find coders for a while, we still dont really know what this game is yet.

i was thinking that it would be done in allegro or SDL though. but does anyone else have other (multi)platform suggestions?
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Hempuli‽
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« Reply #28 on: December 12, 2008, 02:15:10 PM »

no ones coding anything yet. unless someone really wants to start prototyping (Well, hello there!) i wasnt planning on trying to find coders for a while, we still dont really know what this game is yet.

i was thinking that it would be done in allegro or SDL though. but does anyone else have other (multi)platform suggestions?

If you don't mind MMF 2 -ness, I'd be quite much ready to do such a thing. For what I've read now, I could do the things you mentioned here (at least mostly). I've created games for 6 years now :D
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sereneworx
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« Reply #29 on: December 12, 2008, 02:19:37 PM »

I think that multi-platform is a must. When multiplayer multiplatform games, whereupon players on different systems can play against each other, happen I get very happy.
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Hempuli‽
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« Reply #30 on: December 12, 2008, 02:44:53 PM »

I think that multi-platform is a must. When multiplayer multiplatform games, whereupon players on different systems can play against each other, happen I get very happy.

I fear that is true.
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Derek
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« Reply #31 on: December 12, 2008, 05:36:10 PM »

This looks outrageously good. Kiss
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William Broom
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« Reply #32 on: December 12, 2008, 06:48:45 PM »

This looks promising! You mentioned that you want this to have strategy elements. One suggestion: have some classes be more effective against others "under the hood." Rock-paper-scissors, in other words. So shamans do very little damage to scouts, who do very little damage to braves, who do very little damage to buffalo riders, etc.
I think this is all wrong. A scissors-paper-rock dynamic shouldn't be under the hood with arbitrary numbers that players can't see. I think it should be as intuitive as possible. For example, in TF2, sentry guns don't have some secret power that makes them deal double damage to Pyros. But they are very effective against Pyros because they can mow the Pyros down before they get close.
In this game's case, using the same layout as you did as an example: I would make it that shamans are weak against scouts because their spells are mostly too slow to catch the scouts, while scouts are weak against braves because their weak bows take far too long to kill a sturdy brave; and the brave is weak against the buffalo rider because he is not agile enough to avoid the buffalo's devastating charge.
I'm not saying this is how the game should be. It's just to illustrate my point that the game's mechanics should be clear and intuitive.
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michael
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« Reply #33 on: December 12, 2008, 07:17:50 PM »

hemp awesome! prototyping doesnt need to be crossplatform, so when the time comes, we can make some gamebabies

chutup and craig yes. game mechanics shouldnt be arbitrary or hidden, but we should definitely make sure that each class has its place. this way we can promote teamwork and strategy. i also think that getting a simplified vision of how the classes will interface will allow us to more effectively add details and complexity. the more eloquent our design is the more feasible the project is. after we've squeezed out all our brainstorming juices we can start to more rigorously analyze each aspect.

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« Reply #34 on: December 12, 2008, 08:25:34 PM »

(Jumping off several different points)

I think Braves would work best as balanced fighters.  If you make the game just special cases, then you will have a hard time finding any balance, and players will be more likely to get stuck into the rut of just using one class.

As odd as it may sound, I suggest not having healing ability in any classes.  When you add healers, then you have people playing as them, or tribes losing because they don't have a skilled one.  The idea should be that you work together and find a good balance with different types, not that you should find a good balance of player types that work a few ones that become mandatory.

I also think that the server territories and such ideas are good, but things of core game play need to be figured out first.
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« Reply #35 on: December 13, 2008, 01:39:55 AM »

I think laremere have a point in the healing thing. Fast-paced arcade style action games often tend to skip the health meter completely. I believe halo 2 was first with this mechanic, but now almost every commercial multiplayer game applies it. Instead of a health meter that goes down and stays down you have one that just goes down for a couple of seconds, then resets itself.

This is genious in a multiplayer action game because it means that when you win a fight you will step out of it with full health, facing your next enemy on equal odds, while it still is an advantage to team up against the enemy since it takes some time for the health to regenerate itself.

Games where the you have an 1-100 health meter often tend to get very static in the way that you spawn, kill your first enemy(who have low health because he has already been in a fight) and then roam the map with 30% health until someone recently spawned with a full healthbar finds and kills you. You don't stand a chance, he has three times your health. Then you spawn with 100%, find the guy that killed you, kill him and repeat.

Old games like quake 3 and unreal tournament solved this with health packs, but honestly I don't think anyone really finds it entertaning to roam the map searching for health packs instead of actually fighting the enemy.

What I'm trying to say is that I would go for a autorecharging health. This also feels a bit more... organic than the very static and strictly mathematical 1-100 health. Maybe you could even hide the health bar from the player? In halo you almost never look at your healthbar, since you hear see and feel when the first projectile hits you and then intuitively knows how much health you can take. Another nice feature you could add if you had the recharging health would be that morale(warcries, drums) boosts the speed of recharging.

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BorisTheBrave
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« Reply #36 on: December 13, 2008, 03:20:04 AM »

Old games like quake 3 and unreal tournament solved this with health packs, but honestly I don't think anyone really finds it entertaning to roam the map searching for health packs instead of actually fighting the enemy.

On the contrary, I think the health packs provide an important dynamic. By forcing to players to wander the map to regain health, you are ensure that they don't hole up in a small spot, or camp one area, or other similar tatics. It also ties your rate of health regrowth to your skill, as you have to go into frequently quite open places to nab them, and again, more skill can be put into the hunting of weakened players as you have some idea of their motivation. The fact health packs are a limited resource causes conflict over getting them, which can lead to more satisfying fights.
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William Broom
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« Reply #37 on: December 13, 2008, 03:37:49 AM »

For a team-based game, I think the best option is still to include a healer class. If the game is balanced properly, it shouldn't be a necessity for every team to have a good healer.
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« Reply #38 on: December 13, 2008, 04:41:35 AM »

This looks really awesome. Love the sprite designs as always. And the character classes sound pretty cool.

One thing I worry about is the restriction of movement: in a sidescolling-style game you've got very limited movement. You can usually move towards the enemy, and maybe take some side paths up or down. This means your movement tactics are often much more limited than say, Team Fortress.. games like this can often end in stalemates much more easily.

Are you planning to counter this with map design or use it as part of the gameplay?
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« Reply #39 on: December 13, 2008, 06:13:42 AM »

wowowiwa
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