SP RPG - Days of Despair

One night, you are woken by the call to arms in your barracks; the city is being attacked by the Undead. However, the defences are overrun, and your unit cut off. With only a handful of men, a mage, and yourself, you must escape, and restore peace to the land...

Features:

- Very smooth turn based combat system
- Good story line with well developed characters and cinematics
- Possibly/probably an influence system with your party
- A range of custom abilities, many triggered
- More stuff that I can't currently think of
- Variety of level types; for example, will include an AoS type map probably, and also probably an escourt map

Combat system features:

- Takes place on the field; does not have to go to special arena
- Uses normal interface system, allowing the use of tooltips, etc.
- Overdrive system, whereby after you take enough damage you can do a more powerful ability
- Very manipulatable system, allowing easy adding of new abilities, and controlling of enemy AIs via object editor and setting a few variables
- Triggers almost completely in GUI and generic, rather than specific
- Movement within the current combat area allows you to defend weaker party members against melee attacks
- Easy to implement and use, even for those not proficient in triggering

Will also include a status effect system (as normal status effects do not work with turn based combat).

Current progress:

Combat system - Almost finished apart from status system and AI for most of the spell targeting types.
Days of Despair - Demo map, basic planning; begun second map.

EDIT: The combat system is now pretty much finished. I've added the status effect system, and I'm going to begin work on a small amount of documentation to explain all you need to know about the combat system, but most of it is fairly straight forward.

EDIT 2: No documentation yet, but I've fixed a few bugs that appeared, and added in charge/jump attack animations for normal attacks (do not have to be used; set by a variable). If anyone else can think of anything to add, please say so, and if I think it is needed, I'll add it and your name to the credits. Soon I'll have to go through all the triggers though and change the players for variables instead, but that's not really essential.

EDIT 3: Put in the charging back. Animation is currently a little iffy, but it runs goes far faster now (ie: very fast, with very little gap, since I also cut down on some unneeded waits). Also fixed the parabolic curve.

EDIT 4: Added in some camera work in combat. Now got a reworked terrain and new combat start system; included is the first map of the campaign (NB: the ending cinematic is a place holder). Also includes the second map's partially done terrain, if you look in the WE.

EDIT 5: First level, first interlude, save/load basics, and a few other things is done. Also some poorly implemented and unfinished custom music (got to start somewhere with this) with a couple of basic tunes. Enjoy.

Pretty interesting. Though the battle system itself was more like ATB, not turn-based. And it was maybe too slow? Still I think that with a good terrain and interesting storyline this would be a good one.

I'd say more Conditional Turn Based than ATB, since it is neither active nor does it have a bar.

At present, there aren't many abilities I've put in, so its not that interesting in combat, but it's basically a tech demo map at the moment.

Ok, after a series of fairly stupid small errors, I think I've gotten all of the bugs out of the way for the status effect system. Basically, this means that I've finished the combat system. Only stuff left is to find any small bugs, and I also want to make a few alterations, such as to the formulae for the cooldown system.

I suggest you update the first post with the map, as it is now you have the new version lost somewhere in the middle of the thread, while the original post still has the old version (and, if you updated the first post already, then I don't see the reason to duplicate the file in the thread).

Ok, new version of the map uploaded. No specific content added, but it has been significantly improved behind the scenes, and also now has two types of status effects - those that 'tick' every turn (regardless of who), and those which 'tick' only on the unit's turn.

I'll probably be starting the campaign itself properly soon. Any comments, suggestions, etc., are welcome.

It's really slow. Yup. Other than that it seems okay so far.

I thought it was great, just like FF.
Id have to agree thou its alittle slow.

Perhaps you could put initiative bars above the unit representing time until they get their turn. Like the way shadow1500 put bars above units for his shield system.

Will this be multiplayer eventually?

I don't plan to make it multiplayer. Theoretically, it could be changed to be so without that much work, but turn based isn't too good for it.

As for the slow, yea, I'm thinking of speeding it up by having them move back quicker.

As for the initiantive bar - I won't be doing that due to the way it works, but I am thinking of putting in a system to show you the order of the turns (based on normal attacks being carried out). That would be in the future though, not at present.

Allright, I tested the map, let's get down to bugs.

During the first fight, my paladin healed a souldier outside of his turn. I just attacked with him, and then, sometime during the undead's turn, he cat the holy light.

During the second fight, one of my footmen dealt 29 damage (even though he deals 7-25 or something like that, and no, I didn't enhance his attack), maybe the enemy had negative armour or something. Also, at some point, death coil effects started appearing over dead ghouls, and when I should win one of the dead ghouls suddenly attached me and froze when he got to me, I guess since he was already dead he couldn't actually attack me, so that froze the whole fight.

That's all the bugs, now some suggestions. The attack parabola is off, the troops are always too high, having to suddenly drop to the ground when reaching the enemy, also, the movement is a bit slow, maybe it's just the distances that are too big. Running back takes way too much time, couldn't they just slide backwards equally fast as they jump forward? It's not a very realistic combat system, having to run in for every attack, so why bother with walking them back properly? And why do the footmen run when making an enchanted attack, make them jump then too.

It's so slow that even that might not be enough, I think the next character should get his turn before the previous character finishes getting back in his place (even if that is made faster). By the time the next character will actually deal his attack, the previous one will definitely be back in his place, so even if the other character attacks him it should all come together nicely, and make the gameplay about four times faster than it is now. Seriously. Big improvement.

Other than that, terrain (yes I know this is just a tech demo) could use some work (obviously, since you haven't really put any into it yet), decreasing the distances between characters in combat would help here too since you wouldn't need so much empty room for them. Also, some well done cinematography would, together with a lot faster combat, seriously liven this up, for example: when you fight the first wave, once you bring the enemies total hp low enough (like, if only 2 ghouls are left alive each with very little hp) the party moves on and cuts the last ghouls down on-the-way rather than having to fight them in the standard turn system to the last hp. Then, the second wave, which now just waits there, should come from behind the corner just as they hack through the last remains of the first. might seem like a lot of work scripting it, but that's how you make an intense and captivating game, not with generic random encounters.

The game has potential, but what was shown so far needs a lot of tweaking to get there.

[quote=Anitarf]During the first fight, my paladin healed a souldier outside of his turn. I just attacked with him, and then, sometime during the undead's turn, he cat the holy light.[quote]

Not seen that one, I'll look into it.


That's very odd, since there aren't any triggers affecting that.


Again, I haven't seen it, but I'll look into it.


Thanks for reminding me; at present they fly in with a parabola between them and the enemy, not where they need to attack. Will fix that.


Already on it having them charge back, just having a little trouble getting it to play the animation properly.


Going to put in the possibility to have that done for abilities too.


You may have missed the fact that you can move within the combat area, and that can affect melee attacks/abilities (only for the enemy at present, though I might include your troops too).


Yea, I know. At present the major thing is getting the combat system working properly, since this project is also about providing an easy to use and flexible turn based system.


Thanks, and I am tweaking it all the time.

You could also randomly put in close-ups of when a unit gets attack so the player doesn't just see the battle from the same perspective all the time.

And yes you should proceed on with the next turn immediately after the attack while the unit is moving back. Since the unit moves back slowly, it won't be that off even if someone lunges at that unit moving back.

I'm all for adding a little tactics into the system ^^ but if polished well enough a simple turned based system will work fine I guess.

The camera work hasn't been a priority yet, but I'll get to it in due course.


As I already said, the units must be back for the next turn to start or else some things don't work (like the 'guarding' system, see below). However, in the current version (updated first post with it), units now charge back, and it goes a hell of a lot faster (that also allowed me to remove some of the waits because instant move is more reliable).


Tactics such as...moving wounded units behind the healthy ones so that melee enemies can't get them (this is in already)? Also, don't presume there isn't tactics in a turn based system. I just haven't put in a lot of abilities and stuff yet.

Thanks for all the feedback by the way, it's very useful.

The issue here is, why move units behind/in front of other units during turns when they could be using their time better attacking the enemy, thus reducing the ammount of damage the team is taking, or using healing spells, thus getting the damaged units out of danger in a more efficient manner (since you would have to waste time healing them eventually anyway)? Moving units just doesn't fit well in a system like this, I think, games with similar systems, like Final Fantasy, don't move units as I recall, it's all about exchanging attacks in a turn based environment and the distances don't particularly matter (after all, as already mentioned, who runs in to deal one attack and runs back out again in real life?).

Why shouldn't they work? If a unit pulls back as fast as it moves in, and the next unit's turn starts somewhere in the middle of the current unit moving back, then the current unit will be in it's position and ready to guard/be guarded by the time the next unit is halway towards it's target. Seriously, turn based combat can get boring easily if the parts that the player has no control over don't happen as quickly as possible. That's why I also suggested you should slide the units backwards when returning them to their position, so you don't waste time turning them.

I don't know, why would ANYONE want to spend a turn with their most powerful attacker defending their weaker allies?

Why was Auron almost permamently guarding in FFX for me?

Armour and HP mean that it is much better to have someone with high armour and HP being attacked than someone with low hp - especially when they might go down very quickly, leaving you without healing. Also, the cost of movement is small compared to attacking in terms of the cooldown period.


I've already said that they DO slide back now, and it goes a lot faster. However, things cannot happen while mid-way back, or stuff may mess up. Also, now there would be now point, since they move back in roughly a second.