Question about monster handling

Artimidor Federkiel

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Question about monster handling

« on: 09 August 2003, 12:36:00 »

Ok, Humangus... Don't know if you're on vacation or something currently, but I need some details concerning monster handling.

So here it goes:

- If a monster appears can we add a certain "appearance" text before the monster attacks? E.g. as Talia made it:

"While you are admiring the lovely Silken Moss, you hear a dangerous grunting : A big bear is standing upright on its hind legs and is about to attack you, trying to hit you with its terrible paws."

And then the first round starts.

- When can a monster description be viewed? During the fight or only afterwards when you look at the dead body? Some games have a bestiary of all the beasts they encountered so far in the game, which is a lovely thing, but of course this would only be a gimmick for later on.

- To what extent is it possible to create special monsters? Here is Talia's idea: Don’t know if this is feasible...

"Intention is that in a certain room there’s a probability that the moss bear attacks, a pretty large and strong monster, say 30% probability or something. After the hitpoints of the beast diminish to a certain level, the bear disappears and reappears if the player visits the same room for 3 times or so until it is finished."

Question is: Is this something you could handle or is the amount of work to realize this too much? Otherwise we'd have to rewrite this part.

Let me know what you would propose in this case.

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Ta`lia of the Seven Jewels

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Re: Question about monster handling

« Reply #1 on: 09 August 2003, 15:12:00 »

Hmm, Art, it is not necessary, that the bear is finished at some point at all - he can recreate as well, eating Redberries, lol.
If Humangus can do it, (and we lower the probability even to 20%, ) then the player might enter this room 5 times or more without meeting the bear. He can gain experience, but will loose endurance when meeting the bear.
My other idea was, that the player might want to go through the forest - room 346 + the two father north to the path there, because he won't loose endurance this way(if he doesn't meet the bear), while he will loose a lot, using the climbing path room 348 and maybe one room farer north(path as well). I intended to be room 348 a room, where you will loose endurance in every case due to the difficult path.

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Artimidor Federkiel

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Re: Question about monster handling

« Reply #2 on: 10 August 2003, 00:34:00 »

Well, Talia, we have to follow typical role playing guidelines and need to take care of that we don't drift away too much into the adventure direction. Usually all monsters can be killed in RPG games - if the player is strong enough to do so. Fighting and killing monsters are just integral parts of role playing games, though the player can have possibilities to avoid some really tough ones. I guess making the bear run away after he has received some damage is a good idea, cause if you accidentally stumbled into the room, you still have the chance to survive, even if you'd be too weak to kill him at once.

About the endurance (health): Here we should be careful... Because I've never seen a role playing game before which directly diminishes your health when you climb a mountain. Usually weakness/fatigue affect other properties of the player temporarily (e.g. reduce your strength, dexterity etc.), so I'll have to discuss this with Humangus what he thinks is best. Cause if endurance (health) is reduced and the player has only little left, he could die because of the climbing of a mountain... - and this would be somewhat weird, know what I mean? So some game balancing adjustments are definitely necessary here.

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Ta`lia of the Seven Jewels

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Re: Question about monster handling

« Reply #3 on: 10 August 2003, 02:50:00 »

Well, I think I asked Humangus some time ago, if it would be possible to loose endurance in certain rooms and he said yes. To avoid death through climbing one could perhaps the player just not allow to enter the room, if he has not enough endurance telling him: "Your are too tired to climb this wall, maybe you restore some of your energy first?"
Humangus?

If a beast has to die,(poor moss bear, I like them, but I see your point) maybe a second could replace the first after some time, otherwise this spot gets boring. It would be a surprise! Maybe the female moss bear? Which fights even harder because she has lost its compagnion?

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Artimidor Federkiel

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Re: Question about monster handling

« Reply #4 on: 10 August 2003, 03:42:00 »

In most games BTW areas are defined, e.g. take a 3x3 forest area, and make all rooms 20% probability that you're attacked by 1-3 smaller monsters (randomly selected). This works pretty well usually - it's possible that you aren't attacked at all, but also that you get several attacks, also upon returning and not in the same rooms.

This big monster of course is a bit different in handling

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Humangus

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Re: Question about monster handling

« Reply #5 on: 18 August 2003, 05:45:00 »

- Yes, we can add any type of text or even load a picture before a monster attacks but this is true as long as we don't give the player the chance to attack first. Because a monster can be in the same room without attacking at all. As I have said before, this is to handle certain situations. As long as there are monsters we can add text and then cause them to attack through a script.

- You can examine an enemy during combat just like anything else and you can still examine the enemy after you have killed him. Different descriptions are possible.

- Yes, this special monster is possible but I don't see the reason for all this complexity. Besides, a big strong bear cannot run that fast especially when wounded as to get away from a party of 4 adventurers where some of them will be also equipped with missile weapons. We cannot make the bear dissapear. We can use this method though in other situations e.g. a master thief escapes after being hit while you still fight with the rest of the thieves in their lair. That's more suitable.

Besides, if you don't want a kind bear being killed you can always invent a really dangerous nasty evil monster that everybody in Nepris hate and want absolutely dead.

- It is not a good idea for the player to loose health by just walking to certain areas. There must be another attribute added which is actually difficult since it would require changes to the rpg system. I say we give this up for now. It's a mere Engine which cannot possibly implement "everything". And I must balance game programming with adding new features to the Engine itself ( I have to do something with the music and sound effects since Artimidor has collected some nice stuff from what I 've been told)

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