Tactical RPG Grid Patterns

[Helm]

This is why rapid prototyping is a great idea when making a game. If you become attached to something you think is cool for 3 months and then the coder finally realizes it won't work you'll feel more inclined to change coders than ideas.

[Souly]

Very simple question that needs a very short answer. What is your game about?

Okay, this is what I have come up with at the moment...
I suck at writting original stories, I'll probably get one of my literate friends to help me make a better one...

Anywho...
Terra Online is a world of all realities living amongst each other.
Zombies, Pirates, Ninjas, Vikings, Monsters, Medieval and a Modern time period.
The monsters contain the zombie virus, monsters are always heading towards the town.
I'm trying to think of a good way of tossing the zombie virus in with the actual gameplay.
I'm thinking perhaps when you die to monsters you have about 5:00 minutes to live as a zombie.
You can try and bite your friends, or try booking it to town to spread the virus.
Priests, Musicians, and the Herbalist will have the power to reverse the zombie virus.
AI guards in town will also go after you if they see you've turned into a zombie.

When you start everyone starts in their classes island.
My idea for the globe, I'll sketch up a shitty concept.

The mass of land wraps around the planet with a large sea in the middle with a group of islands.
The humans decided to move all civilians to the islands, they still have monsters attacking them but they're not as strong as the ones on land.
When you arrive a guard comes up to you and asks you for help.
There was recently a zombie outbreak amongst the island, it was contained but most all of the towns defenses were taken down.
The guard asks for your assistance to help raid off monsters from the island.

You as a player will have to unlock each town if you want to get some of the unique avatar items that only that town has to offer.
Which will require you to level up by defending towns, and doing quests.

That's all I have at the moment.
Am I just blabbering or did any of that make sense?


@ndchristie: Yeah, I just made a large scaled chess board so I can try out a few classes at once if I want to.
I need to get a room mate to help me with the formula system I'm going to use for the battles so that I can test this in ALMOST REAL 3D version 2.0
And yeah I already thought out reloading, I'm thinking the pistol will have 6 shots before reload and the rifles will have to reload after every shot.

[ndchristie]

heh, that handgun trick actually is how partisan works, too!  with the exception that handguns fire three inaccurate, slightly weaker shots per turn, so you have to reload every third turn instead of every second.

As for the story, I think there is a lot of good zombie\disease ideas to draw on in the world.  here's an idea that's a little out there but might give you some other ideas to actually use :

the disease is spread by infected biological material entering the body.  because of the number of infected, the entire population has been exposed to small amounts of the material just in the air, meaning that everyone is waging an internal battle against the infection, which comes into the game in several ways, indicated by the "infection meter."

 - simply put, allowing the infection to spread throughout your body turns you into a monster.  A fun thing for this would be to let the player start over if he zombies, as in most games, but then keep his old character in the field, so that he becomes a fiend for other players to battle.
 - open wounds allow more infected material to enter the body as well as that all-necessary blood to leak out, hastening the process of infection.  taking damage will increase the rate at which the infection spreads.
 - resting and medical attention are the only way to fight the infection, so the player has to balance his zombie killing with proper care.
 - as the player survives with the virus inside, he gradually becomes adapted to it, meaning that higher level characters will need more infected material to succumb, aka they have a bigger\slower infection meter.
 - the virus is not without it's good points though.  the more infected you are, the more zombie powas you build.  thus, the only way to properly increase your abilities is to spend as much time as possible on the verge of zombiehood.

so yeah, i pulled that all out of my ass, and there's a lot to be improved, but that's the best way i think to pursue things - throw out stuff that may or may not be borrowed or stolen from other games and then refine, refine.  I know for a fact there's a lot of subconscious parasite eve\dragon quarter\bleach in my example, but then you make it your own by putting it in your world, with your changes.

edit - building off of that, you can have there be some sort of alternative or counterpart to the half-monster path.  some sort of inquisition that hunts down the infected.  this also gives you a good way to change the game if you do a rolling release - towns, buildings, or NPC's that need changing can be exterminated by the inquisition.  Players who are reported to flame, kill-steal, team-kill, curse, etc can be "targetted for extermination".  This gives a sense of activity and in-world fun to your administrative actions.

[Souly]

Damn I just tried going to your site and reading up on what you have done with partisan tactics.
But everything was like french.

Would you be able to explain this to me, I'm interested to know what everything means.

[ndchristie]

heh, i'm not actually sure about that one, but i think that it is a pathfinding map showing the order that the move from the red square to blue square is processed, with pink squares being possible paths that the system then excluded for being too long.

when i get home, if you like, there's way more going on with partisan than we've written about, especially with regards to movement across heights.  it's pretty straightforward on the outset, but then there's a lot that we've included like risk (the possibility of missing a jump, or jumping off a ledge that you know will hurt in order to cover ground quickly, etc), grip\roll (for large objects, wet objects and big falls), climbing, leaping (horizontal jump ability increased with distance from ledge), etc.

As far as attack grids in partisan, nearly everything is LOS.  Only a very few skills act outside of this, few enough to name (some artillery, some magic like lightning, some tools like grenades).

Now, i won't necessarily prescribe the partisan method.  The reason that partisan is so big on movement and sight is that it is not planned to be a game about two armies meeting in a field and going at it, it's meant to be about a few guys using more theatrical methods to overcome a few other guys.  Partisan is about fighting the way fights happen in classicly styled adbenture movies and pirate movies in particular.  Taking cover, outsmarting, and outfooting your oponent are key, and our maps are going to be tailored to this (ships, harbors, ramparts, narrow streets, etc). 

In other types of games, this would be hardboiled hell on rye.  Even in games like warhammer, where armies are only a few dozen, terrain needs to be far simpler than it is in partisan, so that the men can move properly.  Things like footing aren't even considered.  In games focussing on a very small number of people, say two or three total in a battle, complicated terrain is purely decorative, as you don't have enough men to make any use of it.  It turns into a zorro fight or a star wars duel, where there is interaction with the obstacles, but it's not at all necessary or even noticed.  You might fall into this category if you have few enemies at a time.

If your have lots of enemies though, your game could use a complicated movement system and become almost a puzzler that's all about controlling where the enemy can and can't move.  that could be really fun.

it's all about what inspires you and what strikes you.

[Axolotl]

Zombies??!? Nooo... Not that virus and zombie saga again.

Why was the game named Terra Online?

What are those ball-like monsters who seem to have components of different elements?

[Souly]

Zombies??!? Nooo... Not that virus and zombie saga again.

Why was the game named Terra Online?

What are those ball-like monsters who seem to have components of different elements?

Zombies and Virus go hand in hand.

I dunno, I was 16 when I started this project.
So were my friends.
I haven't bothered renaming it yet? :/

Elemental Wisps?

[Souly]

Determine who goes first - Speed (first turn only), Recover
Modifications to speed - Agility, Weight, Items, Spells
Can you hit the victim - Range, Attack vs Defense, Dexterity vs Agility, Wisdom vs Will
How much damage can you do - Range x Damage?, Dexterity, Wisdom (spells)
Modifications to damage - Weapons, Items, Spells
How can the victim reduce that damage - Armor, Agility, Will (spells)
Modification to that reduction - Weapons, Items, Spells
Is the victim dead? N - Allow them to attack, Y - Battle is over
Repeat...

Doing that gives the following stats:
Attack
Dexterity
Speed
Agility
Will
Wisdom

With items deciding:
Damage
Range
Armor
Defense
Recover

You would think with a "Huge Sword" your attack and damage go up, but your recover and defense would go down

Classes would determine your skills and help me come up with original ideas based around the class not the weapon.
I was thinking classes would specialize only certain weapon types.
Sure they can use the other weapons but they wouldn't have the skills needed to use them.
Overall I kind of want every attack to be a skill even melee, each skill has an effect it would do to the other player.
In my mind that makes for more interesting skill combos to be done.

We could even make it so you determine your own class depending on what skills you master.
This would allow for diversity.

Right now the weapons I have in mind would be like...

1-Handed Weapons
Sword
Knife
Mace
Axe
Shield
Jur

2-Handed Weapons
Sword
Axe
Maul
Shield
Guitar
Pole-arm
Wrench

1-Handed Firearm
Pistol
Crossbow
Modified shotgun

2-Handed Firearm
Rifle
Shotgun
Musket

Paraphernalia (Damge over time)
Needles
Smokers

1-Handed Explosives
Grenades
Bottles
Mines

2-Handed Explosives
Cannon
Time(turn) Bombs

The weapons stats I had in mind would be in this format for example with a 2-handed weapon and a 1-handed weapon

2-Handed Sword
Damage: +10
Range: +2 (squares)
Defense: -20
Weight: +20
Recover: -15 (seconds)

1-Handed Pistol
Damage: +5
Range: +3 (squares)
Defense: -10
Weight: +20
Recover: -5 (seconds)

And your equipment would determine...
Armor:
Defense:
Weight:
Recover:

The new turn system would then become waiting based.
You make your move and then wait with what you did being a factor of how long.