next »

[McMutton]

'Hoy there, guys! Need some opinions on something.

Recently, I finally figured out that my game's spellcaster would use a "gun" that fires her spells:


I was thinking on it today, and had the idea that it would only have a limited number of charges at one time, so that you could only fire it a handful of times before having to "reload" it by filling it back up with magic, which'll take a second or two.

I'm not sure whether or not to limit your ability to do this, though. I'm considering two options:

• Once you run out you have to recharge it, but you can do this an unlimited amount of times
• Once you run out you have to recharge it, but you have a certain amount of reloads available. The pool of reloads recharges over time.

Mechanically, the second option is more viable if I plan on having a good amount of resource management in the game, which I might. And lore-wise it makes sense that, since she's infusing her own magic power into the weapon, she'd run out if overexerted.

I don't know if that beats ease-of-use, though. Thoughts?

[Orymus]

Are you sure about the whole FF8 thing here?
Is visual design of the weapon final?

As for the mechanic, what is the pursued objective behind "reloading"? That's a requirement to determine how to go about it efficiently.

[starsrift]

Charges and reloading are mechanics intrinsically linked to game pacing and character durability, so there's no golden answer to your question, it depends on your game and you'll want to playtest it.

[gimymblert]

Charges and reloading are mechanics intrinsically linked to game pacing and character durability, so there's no golden answer to your question, it depends on your game and you'll want to playtest it.

that

A bunch of simple math will also help you find the pacing, start with the overall DPS goal you want, then break it down into options and rythm.

[McMutton]

Are you sure about the whole FF8 thing here?

Did FF8 do something similar? I've never played it, so all that comes to mind are the gunblades.

Is visual design of the weapon final?

There'll be various designs as I've got the weapon progression thing. Did you have some feedback on that front?

As for the mechanic, what is the pursued objective behind "reloading"? That's a requirement to determine how to go about it efficiently.

I'm thinking that I want to stop the player from spamming the spells, as some are quite effective. I also want to give using them some strategic significance; you'll have to carefully decide when the best time to attack with her is, since reloading would leave you open if you wasted the energy all willy-nilly.

Charges and reloading are mechanics intrinsically linked to game pacing and character durability, so there's no golden answer to your question, it depends on your game and you'll want to playtest it.

That's a good point, yeah; I may need to wait until after I've built a level to test this out.

A bunch of simple math will also help you find the pacing, start with the overall DPS goal you want, then break it down into options and rythm.

The spells will be more of a combat utility than just different ways of dealing damage, though. It's more accurate to think of them as the equivalent of Zelda items in this regard. This'll be a useful technique for normal attacks, though.

Thanks for the replies, guys!

[gimymblert]

What I meant that DPS is the meant of progression in combat, don't see it just as damage but the main progression of a sub mechanic (combat). Comabt end when health = 0 and damage is what move health toward 0. Even though you might have technique that don't directly contribute to DPS, they help throttle his speed and acceleration up or down. So at the end it is still a DPS calculation. In fact there is two metric in a combat that end it, distance to winning or distance to escaping, so it might contribute to the second progression too!

In practice you would have a graph with dps or any progression's metric as a central node and all other mechanic plug into it or to each other but ultimately converging toward it. SO by controlling the curve of the evolution of the dps, you control the pacing!

[JWK5]

You could have the gun by default fire weaker shots, but allow it to absorb enemy "essence" (or whatever) that adds one "power shot" per essence absorbed. In this manner the player has to move through battle tactically, taking out weaker enemies to build up power shots in order to take out the bigger enemies.

You could take this a bit further and have each enemy give a different kind of power shot. For example, some might give fire shots, some might give electric shots, some might give ice shots, etc. Your bigger enemies could have various weaknesses that each ammo type capitalizes on (for example, maybe a fire shot will burn up their heavy wooden shield preventing them from blocking subsequent shots). This will push the tactical nature of the battles a bit further requiring the player to carefully plan out their power shot usage and the order they obtain shots in (bringing an almost puzzle-like quality to the fight).

While that will work well for group encounters, it wouldn't work as well for solo encounters (unless prior to the encounter you provide ammo-mobs). You could make different "ammo wells", maybe some obelisks or something magic can be drawn from, to allow the player to stock up power shots from the environment (for example, during boss battles or whatever).

If you go this route, I wouldn't bother with reloading. Just have the gun fire its weak shots unlimited at a moderate pace (to give the fights a hit-and-run flow) and the limited nature of the power shots would likely keep them from getting too spammy.

Just a thought.

[McMutton]

Thanks for the in-depth replay, JWK5! Glad you've returned, too; haven't seen you in a while. (Maybe I'm just blind, though)

That's a pretty cool idea, too; perhaps I'd make defeated enemies drop the essence as a usable item that would let you load a power shot of that particular element. That way, you could collect them along the way to an encounter and have a store of various types to use at will.

[P-Flute]

I kinda favor the second idea, gave it some thought. Seems like it might be more likely to help create good ebb and flow? Also, what's the in-the-moment gameplay gonna be like for the player who's eaten up all their shots/reloads?