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Anything Under the Sky - Battle System
Note! This page is a work in progress, and all information here is tentative and put down for the purposes of brainstorming. Feel free to offer changes and suggestions and the like.
Also, I'm using female pronouns for Feet at the moment, though her gender hasn't been finalized yet.
~Shadowtext
Feet is not a very good fighter. She's a decent thief, but her damage-dealing ability is fairly minimal. As such, battles in this game will be different from most games. Rather than trying to vanquish a foe, the goal will be to distract them and run away, with experience recieved for successful escapes.
It will be possible to reduce an enemy's HP to zero through attacks or the use of items, though in many cases it would be better to sell those items instead of using them. I am not sure whether more experience should be granted for killing an enemy than escaping, yet.
I was thinking this might work better by considering the dungeon as the basic unit of combat instead of the individual encounter - it's appropriate for a sneakier game, where you'd expect people to try to minimize contact with enemies, even having the game penalize long encounters. "Path A has two guards, path B has a window of three rounds with only one guard - but to get through that quickly, I might have to bribe him..."
Maybe I'm thinking of different sorts of opponents than you are, though?
-DF
Well, I think the core of it should be the dungeon and the sneaking. But done well, we could have the dungeon as a whole flow nicely into individual battles.
Another idea I had, since this is a bit non-standard and more complex than your average RPG battle system, we could do with a tutorial level, and I think it would be fitting if the tutorial was Feet and Brains last job before going legit, giving you an interactive introduction to the characters and the battle system at the same time. It'd also have the advantage of not requiring the player to be particularlly good at the start, as Feet and Brains end up failing that job, and almost getting caught, which convinces them that being legal citizens might not be all bad.
-Yan
Basic Battle Concepts
Enemies, in addition to the usual HP and MP stats, should have an "Attention" and "Aggression" stat displayed in-battle somehow (be that through a meter or through an icon over the enemy or something).
The Attention Meter
The higher the Attention stat, the harder it is to run from the enemy, and the more likely the enemy is to hit Feet when attacking. When the Attention Meter is low, Feet is more likely to dodge attacks, more likely to successfully steal or pull off certain Cons and Tricks.
When the Attention Meter reaches Zero, Feet will automatically escape from battle, and be awarded experience.
I think it would be a lot more natural to split this into three parts. "Attention" representing how much of a clue the person has about where you are. "Misdirection" for thinking you're somewhere else. "Inattention" just for whatever's left of the meter, not having noticed anything. Misdirection is often immediately easier to get things done with but carries a longer-term penalty (e.g., converts slowly into Attention, or some penalties are based on Attention + Misdirection instead of just Attention)
-DF
Something I thought off would be making use of your environment, particularly light sources. Drawing from stuff like Thief and Splinter Cell, it's harder to be caught moving in dark areas, and easier in well lit. We could use that, and also apply it to combat, where in dark areas Attention is harder to raise and naturally decreases, while in light areas it's harder to lower and naturally increases.
-Yan
The Aggression Meter
The Aggression Meter represents how angry the foe is with Feet. An empty Aggression Meter represents a neutral feeling, and a negative Aggression Meter represents a friendly character.
When the Aggression Meter is high, successful attacks from the enemy deal extra damage, and counterattacks are more likely. When the Aggression Meter is low, counterattacks become rare and enemy attacks deal less damage.
When the Aggression Meter reaches zero or less, the battle ends and Feet is awarded experience. The enemy will then give Feet a gift, money, or offer to buy something from her. For some story battles, other effects might happen as well.
Considering the better results from zeroing Aggression, it should be harder to reduce than Attention, meaning things under certain circumstances, you'd want to raise Attention, just to keep the battle going long enough to zero Aggression.
-Yan
This comes back to "maybe I'm thinking of different sorts of opponents than you are?" I'd imagine that just letting you pass would be suitable most of the time.
-DF
I was thinking more of the run-ins with random adventures, where zeroing aggression would allow you to get stuff or sell stuff to them. Generic guards on the other hand you'd just zero attention and escape.
-Yan
Status Effects
The following status effects are the ones I can see working in the battle system as I've dreamed it up.
- Sleep - This is the equivalent of "Escaping" battle in a regular RPG. The player starts out with the "Lullaby" trick, which has a chance of inflicting "Sleep." Battle is instantly ended, but no experience is awarded.
- Blind - Even with a high Attention Meter, the enemy's chance to hit Feet is greatly reduced.
- Distraction - The Attention Meter is reduced at the end of each turn. Similar to Poison for HP.
- Confusion - The character inflicted with Confusion has a chance to inflict damage on himself or his allies.
- Kawarimi - The next attack against this character will miss, and attacker's Attention meter will drop.
Battle Actions
Attack
Like any RPG hero, Feet can attempt to take down enemies using her battle skills. Unfortunately, unlike most RPGs, she doesn't have that many battle skills to start with. But she does collect some powerful weapons.
I think there should be some sort of penalty applied to weapon usage. Maybe a Fire Emblem-style "number of uses" or "Weapon HP" or something, which goes down whenever the weapon is used to attack. The weapons are of course repairable (that's half the point of the game), but the better weapons cost more to repair....and I daresay an item with 99/100 uses left is worth way less than a weapon with 100/100 uses left.
Basically, discourage players from attacking. It's an option, but it shouldn't be the one they rely on.
This should also raise Attention and Aggression on a successful hit.
Also, I think we should add a little more than just X uses for a weapon. Whether or not a weapon breaks down should be dependent on the weapon's quality (better forged sword less likely to be damaged that the dime a dozen suff), the weapon's type (What's damage going to do to a club? Make it more blunt?), and the target's armor (squishy flesh vs. reinforced steel).
-Yan
Steal
Feet attempts to take something from an enemy. Stealing becomes easier the lower the enemy's attention is, but a steal attempt instantly refills the attention gauge by a lot.
Similarly, this should also raise Aggression, moreso on success.
-Yan
Tricks
Tricks are Foot's main form of defense. Tricks are generally used to "deal damage" to the Attention Meter. There are minor tricks like the old "Look over there!" trick to throwing flashbombs or using decoys.
High level tricks might even begin to take on mystical features, such as a Naruto-style Bushin technique.
- Lullaby - Attempts to inflict "Sleep."
- Hypnotise - A more successful Lullaby. Nearly 100% chance of success.
- Behind You! - Reduces the Attention Meter with a low success rate.
- Flash Bomb - Reduces the Attention Meter by a small amount with a decent success rate.
- Stand Still - Reduces Attention Meter to zero. Very low success rate.
- Shining Beam - Reduces Attention Meter by a medium amount, and inflicts Blind.
- Red Herring - Reduces Attention Meter by a medium amount, medium success rate.
- Dreamscape - Inflicts Distraction.
- Kawarimi - User is is given Kawarimi status.
- Doppleganger - Reduces Attention Meter by a medium amount, and inflicts Confusion. High success rate.
- Fade Out - Reduces Attention Meter to zero. Medium success rate.
- Dancing Lights - Reduces Attention Meter by a large amount. Chance to inflict Distraction.
Cons
Cons only work on enemies of humanoid intelligence....but the lower the enemy's intelligence or Attention, the easier they are to work. Cons are mostly used to reduce the Aggression Meter, though some also affect the Attention Meter or have special effects, like Extort and Charm.
Cons have a better chance of working on enemies with high Attention Meters, and many further refill the Attention Meter.
- Extort - Gets money from the target. A failed attempt refills the Attention Meter by a small amount, and greatly increases the Aggression Meter.
- Flatter - The Aggression Meter is reduced.
- Attention! The Attention Meter is brought back to full.
- First Aid - The enemy's HP is partially refilled, and Aggression is reduced.
- Flirt - Reduces the Attention and Aggression Meter of male targets.
- Infuriate - The Attention Meter is reduced, but the Aggression Meter is increased. Infuriate can not reduce the Attention Meter to zero.
- Siren's Song - The Aggression Meter is reduced by a medium amount, but the Attention Meter is heavily increased. Only works on males. High success rate.
- Charm - The Aggression Meter is reduced. There is a chance of receiving money from the target.
- Common Cause - The Aggression Meter and the Attention Meter are both reduced.
- Bribe - The Aggression Meter is instantly reduced to zero, for a monetary cost. Success rate is 100%, if the right amount of money is paid.
- Rousing Speech - Attention Meter is filled, but Aggression is greatly reduced.
That's all I've got for now. You guys should add some stuff!
~Shadowtext
Let me give an idea of what I mean by the attention/misdirection/inattention division.
For shorthand, let Activity = Attention + Misdirection and Awareness = 2*Attention + Inattention. (Activity represents how hard the opponent is trying to find something, even if he's on the wrong track. Awareness is what determines how likely Feet is to be spotted when doing stealthier stuff.)
Lullaby: Cause sleep. Requires low Activity.
Hypnotize: Cause sleep. Requires high Attention.
Look, A Convenient Distraction!: Converts all Misdirection into Attention, raises Attention to a preset (high) level if it's lower than that, then converts some Attention into Misdirection. (Plus related Tricks for lower Attention levels - this one in particular is for emergencies when Attention is dangerously high.)
Wait: Chance of reducing Attention. Works best when Activity is low.
Attack, Steal, Sneak Past: Much better effectiveness if Awareness is low. Attacking or Stealing with Misdirection will tend to convert some of it into Attention, though, and if you Sneak Past somebody who has a lot of Activity, sooner or later they'll figure out what happened and raise an alarm or come looking for you.
An alternative would be to have the Attention and Aggression meters more or less as described, but a separate Misdirection meter: provides success bonuses but decreases over time if not added to by Tricks.
-DF
Something that came to mind a while ago (and has subsequently slipped repeatedly) is that given Feet is working for an item manufacturing business, it would make sense for him to have a few choice tricks up his sleeve. These would be special items he can bring with him on a mission. The downside of course would be he can only carry so many, and making them takes resources away from item manufacture, meaning using them carelessly can be bad for business.
-Yan
Tangental idea: Have some time trial levels in town, where the local thieves guild challenges you to make it through a dungeon course fastest. Some contrived challenges set up just for practicing your dungeon crawling. Doing well improves your rep with them, and earns you spare cash.
-Yan
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