   Looking for Feedback - Gameplay Description
  Hi everyone!I had for quite a long time an idea for a game. Actually, it's more like an obsession, in fact it's the game i've always wanted to play. And I'm gonna make it, takes what it takes =DSo, I'd like to know what you think of my ideas, hoping you can help me figure out how to improve it ^_^Brief description: This game is an Action RPG/Hack and Slash. Something on the line of Dinasty Warrior, for making it clear. Often the two terms are interwined, I'm not really sure of which one to use.The game setting is fantasy, and the player impersonate one of the 'Gods', powerful entities which travel free around the world. No one knows where they are from, or where they go. They just exist.I've not came up with a full story because until I can experiment with hand the gameplay I'm not sure of what could fit well with the pace of the action.Gameplay description: The main features are:- A good/evil system- 3-4 talent trees- Improved combat systemThe good/evil system works in a very simple way: if you kill the guys the game reports as evil, you shift to a better alignment. If you kill citizens or such innocent people, you shift to evil.An evil player is stronger than a good player.An evil player CANNOT proceed into the main plot.When a certain level of evilness is reached, the player cannot turn good again.So, if you wanna proceed into the main plot, you must be good. However, if you wanna just play casually or try to win some sub-quests ( like the bosses around the world in the Final Fantasy series ), it's nice to be evil and stronger. It is also possible to complete the whole plot, and then continue playing, becoming evil and win the sub-quests.The talent trees are the stats of the player. They determine how the character is strong, agile, but also how he walks and combats. Talents are bought using xp earned from quests and killing monsters, and can be unlearn. Also, a previously learnt talent will cost less to repick. There is an upper limit to the talent you can learn.Last, most of the talents has requirements ( tot Strength, tot Agility, another talent ).There are different kind of talents: some just improve stats, some let you learn a new ability or combo, others influence directly the way you move.I'm explaining better this last type of talent, since I don't think there are many examples of them in current videogames ( if there are I've not seen them ^_^" ).In this game there are a LOT of animations. So, actually, if you want your PC move like a stealth ninja, you could go in the Agility Talent Tree, and pick the talent 'Ninja Walk' ( names are just made up ), and your character would then walk actually like a ninja. This can be repeated for jumping, running, fighting etcetera. The player can have only one talent per kind ( you can't walk in two different ways ).From here, to the improved combat system.Usually, in this kind of games, you have 2-3 buttons to attack, and make combos. The combos let you show always the same sequence, often resulting in a boring gameplay. My idea was to create many animations of a single attack:  for example, when you do a light attack ( let it be a sword blow ), you don't always move the blade from left to right. There are a lot of other options in swinging a blade: right to left, up to down, down to up..So, if a lot of options of animations are given, can be created an AI to handle the combat style, so that more various ( and cool ) fight scenes happen on the screen, without an increase in complexity with the controls. There would be also combos and such, but always with partially different animations for each, so that every person in the game could react realistically to the opponent's moves.If an enemy attacks you with a right-left blow, you dodge jumping or croutcing, if he attacks up-down you dodge laterally. This does not influence the number of combinations the player has to know, only his position after the attack. What are required are more reflexes and adaptation from a new tuation, than learn more moves to become more powerful.Ending So, this are the basics of my idea. The next year I'll start studying some 3d, and then I will start making a prototype, and, if I'm lucky, I'll get to finish it.Hope you like it!Thanks in advance for feedback! =DAny questions are also welcome! =)Feedback: ANY   
  There is a common failure with games that offer a good / evil alignment system. If the player is punished (i.e. cannot progress the story) - they will generally avoid it and thus it's not worth implementing. You must always give a player an incentive to do something as they will often take the path of least resistance. You appear to be falling into the same trap. Someone will play the evil part - but I wouldn't, you haven't given me any incentive.As for the improved combat - well, firstly, the reason people have the same or repeating animations for combos is for player feedback. The player wants to know their button input worked. Making variations could confuse the issue (unless it was subtle).Secondly, I think you're shooting too high on your expectations for combat - combat systems with combos and decent branching animation systems get very complex very quickly. Especially if you are expecting "realistic" reactions. I would be nervous hearing a wish list like that on an experienced team that has shipped commercial software. Especially when combined with the new animations that you're suggesting you will need for the talent trees. Scale back - give yourself a fighting chance of completing it.;  Thanks for the feedback! ^_^Quote:There is a common failure with games that offer a good / evil alignment system. If the player is punished (i.e. cannot progress the story) - they will generally avoid it and thus it's not worth implementing. You must always give a player an incentive to do something as they will often take the path of least resistance. You appear to be falling into the same trap. Someone will play the evil part - but I wouldn't, you haven't given me any incentive.For the good/evil system I wasn't really thinking of giving the player a choice.. just a cool more option of looking ( they would look different if good/evil ) and of acting and for casual playing ( it's fun to kill random things when you are in the mood, and the stronger the better ). There could be also a story for an evil character, but that would render pointless the system, because when one of the two path is chosen you can't reasonably turn back.Quote:As for the improved combat - well, firstly, the reason people have the same or repeating animations for combos is for player feedback. The player wants to know their button input worked. Making variations could confuse the issue (unless it was subtle).For this, I've thought about it. I think that until the various moves are clearly distinct, than the player can know if what he is doing is working. Since in this kind of game, in my opinion, the less inputs, the better, I was thinking of keeping 3-top 4 buttons for attacks. The attacks would be:-light-heavy-grip-some kind of power move?So, for every kind of attack, there would be a visual effect different. For example, a light attack is a plain attack, and the player would just attack randomly. For a heavy attack, the attack is the same, slower, and the blades light blue.  When a combo is activated, another type of light is emitted, so that the player can always know what his PC is doing. Quote:Secondly, I think you're shooting too high on your expectations for combat - combat systems with combos and decent branching animation systems get very complex very quickly. Especially if you are expecting "realistic" reactions. I would be nervous hearing a wish list like that on an experienced team that has shipped commercial software. Especially when combined with the new animations that you're suggesting you will need for the talent trees. Scale back - give yourself a fighting chance of completing it.I was thinking of starting small, avoiding the talent system, and working on rendering smooth only a kind of combact. Then slowly adding the others, and at the last try to combine them and seeing what could happen. It is true that for realistic reactions there would be a lot of work to do, but I was thinking to keep very low the graphic and concentrating only on the smoothness of the combat. Is this nontheless too much?I've indended this as a long project. I know I can't do it in a couple of months, and I will have to work hard for some years to make it done, but it's not a problem for me.My first real object is to make my little character go around and jump. And then, slowly, add things.Mm.. I've just read what I wrote and.. am I dreaming too much? =P   ;  Heh heh - it's good to have dreams. No, your plan to start small is good, and sensible.Key thing - get one attack working first - and then build from there. I'm a bit pressed for time to think through the implications of the colored streaks - although on the surface, it sounds like a reasonable solution. I would be thinking through the implications of branching from attack type to another and how will it read visually. Do you have to do the same thing for the enemies (especially if the enemies attacks will indicate to you what attack you should be doing to counter it). Examine God of War and see how it's combat system works. Like a lot of things in that game, they have simplified the mechanics and concentrated on polishing the hell out of it. But if you look carefully, you can see what decisions they made to simplify the implementation process.One last bit of advice, something I found useful even on big teams - If you plan it to be a long term project (or feature), make sure you give yourself little goals along the way so you can always see positive progress. It's easy to lose interest when nothing is changing for the better over long periods.   ;  Just on the good evil thing, as someone has said, don't block them from playing main story, as that just makes it almost pointless. What you might want to consider is something where the evil player is much stronger, but the good player is able to talk to people, get info out of them, and people will give him potions etc. The bad guy can intimidate people, but some of them care too much, and will sooner die than give away some key information.By doing this, or something similar, you create a interesting decision for the player. They are forced to weigh up between short term gain of increased power, vs long term loss of not being able to get the help of the minions.   ;  @Foniks:I'm playing a lot of action rpg atm for seeing how they handle the ui, the fights and so; now I'm finishing DMC4 and I'm planning to take Prototype as soon as I can, because it is very similar to the concept I have for my game.As for now, I was thinking that maybe if I create something very simple in 2d to test my 'lights' idea, even if in a very semplicistic way, I could find out some problems of the mechanic early. Has this sense, given that I plan the game to be in 3d? Also, I hate making 2d animations: I'm pretty good in doing it, but I'm awfully slow.. some suggestions for that?@thk123:This is a really good idea, but I fear it would not work with my current idea of the system. In this genre, the story concept usually focuses with something on the line of "Hey, there are enemies, kill 'em all!", so the info thing would not work.And for the items, I wasn't really planning on having them in the first place, with the exception of some weapons. I can't really come up with anything that my player could want from the people. Even potions are useless, as my health system is the same of Gears of War and another lot of games: if you wait without being hit, you heal.Also, if you are evil, it would seem strange to me that people gives you quests in the first place. "Hey, the Lord of the Slayers has arrived, why not ask him to retrieve our goat?" just doesn't sound right.So, if the player wants to follow the story, he/she must stick with the story, and behave like the story expects him to do. If he wants not, wants to kill randomly people, or wants to try to win the much more harder side quests or side bosses, he is free to do so, and can choose the evil form, which is a lot more powerful.But reading your comments I've realized that the "When a certain level of evilness is reached, the player cannot turn good again." is stupid, so I'll take it out.   ;  Re: On the progression of the main plotWhen you say that the character needs to be good (or good enough) in order to progress the main plot, do you imply that the main plot events have triggers? If the character is evil, will the game world get stuck at a certain state, or will the game world keep moving on, but with problems not fixed?Example:Hero comes to a village. The village says that they need help to kill bandits. If the hero accepts the quest, the bandits will come and the hero is suppose to kill them. Everything sounds pretty normal. If the hero declines the request, will the bandits still come? Or would the game have some kind of loop where the bandits would come once every few days until they are defeated? (And in the meantime, the hero could choose to pillage the village before the bandits come and kill the bandits when they come.)I suppose the above doesn't really demonstrate the depth of the issue well. Imagine that your main plot has plot points A, B, C. The hero is supposed to complete A, then B will be offered, and then C. Suppose C involves fighting a boss. My question was, suppose the hero is already evil at A. Will the game allow the hero to find C and kill C even though A and B are not completed? 1) If yes, what prevents a good Hero from skipping A and B and just kill C?2) If no, would it happen that, to unlock the interesting encounters, the player must play good until almost the end where the bosses are unlocked?For this issue, my assumption is that the direct path to C is evil. For instance, the boss of C might not have a definite appearance, so to find C without going through B is to kill everyone (including innocent people) until you happen to be attacking C (when that happen the boss will reveal itself and fight for real.) Setting the Direct Path to Confrontation EvilSo to answer the previous replies, the game could be designed such that the direct paths leading to interesting confrontations are evil. It is like trying to kill a corrupted police chief. You could storm through the building to get to him, but if you do that you will kill many innocent people (if you don't want to get killed). The good path, on the other hand, allows the plot to progress so that people realize that the police chief is evil, and to give you a situation where it is safe to confront the chief without hurting innocent people. The purpose of this structure is to allow the player the access to interesting combat encounters, while imposing a difference between the good and the evil paths. (I suppose you could say that the evil and good encounters by nature are not equivalent, because if you do storm the building the player gets to encounter way more 'enemies'. That could be an incentive to be evil.)   ;  I have to really thank you Wai for your post. I've spended a lot of time thinking through it, and I came up with a lot of conclusions, even though I STILL DON'T KNOW anything about the plot, so for some questions it's quite hard for me to answer to.So, I'll try to go in order.Quote:When you say that the character needs to be good (or good enough) in order to progress the main plot, do you imply that the main plot events have triggers? If the character is evil, will the game world get stuck at a certain state, or will the game world keep moving on, but with problems not fixed?Yes, the main story has triggers, and if a trigger is not activated the world will stuck at a certain state. It is really easier to handle and as long as the triggers are clearly defined to the player I think it's a good choice.Quote:1) If yes, what prevents a good Hero from skipping A and B and just kill C?The fact that they are plot points ;)I'm explaining. A and B don't exist for nothing. The possibilities are two:1) At A you don't know you will have to kill the boss at C. So even if the player, out of the game, knows that, the character will be unable to kill the boss ( something like 'non hostile' ).2) At A you do know you have to kill the boss at C, but you are unable to. The boss is too strong, and A and B are simply plot points in which you weaken the boss' defences.The thing you are saying about the direct confrontation will work within the same plot point, representing the choices that player has completing an objective.And here comes the problem: this is a game about killing people. It's what you do. I think it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to have, for most of the plot points, a double path which says "Left there is a path full of enemies you have to kill go through. Right there is a path full of innocent people you have to kill to go through. They both take to the same point. Yours is the choice".Most of them would be dull choices. Let's admit it: a good player and an evil player cannot, in most cases, do the same story. If they do, the resulting story is not believable. Even if their final objective is the same ( for example, a revenge ), their path of action will be so different to require two completely different stories.And especially in this game, remember that the two paths should both require killing.So I think I've to remove the evil/good mechanic, and replace it with something equal which is not based on morals.This mechanic will have 2 statuses:Status 1: The player can proceed within the main story.Status 2: The player cannot proceed within the main story. The player has more informations. The player is stronger. The player has access to more xp sources.I'm not sure what this statuses are representing; since the main character is a particular type of creature, human-like, extremely powerful, born from nothing (as I said "the player impersonate one of the 'Gods', powerful entities which travel free around the world. No one knows where they are from, or where they go. They just exist."), I was thinking as Status 2 as a dream-like status, where the God sees and lives in the world in which he was before coming to life. Still, don't knowing the main plot, it's all subject to change.If you have any ideas let me know ^_^BONUS:Quote:then B will be offeredThe following critique is unrelated with Wai's post ( and also partially with my own game), I know he didn't intended to say what I'll argue, but that phrase made me think, so here I write.I HATE the games in which you are given the objectives. It seems that you are just a tool for all the npc round there, even if you are saving the world.It's NOT that way. YOU are saving the world (or whatever else). It's the player which makes the decisions, he/she is doing something because he/she wants to do it. The npcs involved should be almost your slaves, if not. The resulting story is the same, but is much more rewarding for the player.Example. Let's say you are saving the world. There is a mage which can help you making some potions to weaken the undeads defending the evil boss' tower.Usually the dialogue would be like this ( M: mage, Y: you ):[Y enters in M house]M: How dare you enter my house! Who are you?Y: Sorry to disturb, sir, my name is Y. I've come here because I was told you can make a potion to weaken the undead, and since, you know, the world is in danger, I was thinking it could help in killing the evil boss..M: Ah, yes, I've heard something about that. I was actually in the middle of something quite important, but *sigh* I think I can help you. The problem is that I've finished the herb to make that kind of potion, and I'm old, you know I can't be bothered to gather some. So you go in the forest, gather the herb, and then I will help you.Y: Of course, good sir, of course, thank for helping us in this dark hour. [exits]This is BAD.Actually, the dialogue should be like this:[Y slams the door, entering in M house]Y[shouting]: Where's M? We're in hurry!M: What's happening? Who are you?Y: We don't have time for this. The world is in danger. I was told you can make some undead-killing potion, can you help me?M: Oh my! The world is really in danger? I've heard some voices, but I'd never think that... oh, OF COURSE I can help you. Just please wait here for a sec, I'll gather all the ingredients.[after a pause] Oh no! I've finished a herb to make the potion! All my assistants are out, what will we do?! Well, no-one will say that the old M didn't help in the hour of need. I'll go gather them, dear sir, I'm sorry I can't go really fast, but I'll do my best to..Y: There's no time for this, grandpa. You start making the preparations, I'll go gather this herb for you, I'm surely faster than you. Just make sure to be fast when I'll be back!M: Oh, of course, of course, thanks for giving an old mage the opportunity to help saving the world, I.. [ Y exits, slamming the door again ]Maybe this examples are a little ( a little xD ) exaggerate, but you get the idea. You are the important one. The others are not. ^_^(also, I think my bad english is especially strong in this post, please forgive me =P )   ;  Skim read... My answer's simple:DON'T FAIL!No pressure then...This is a serious reply. What your Good/Evil alignment thingy (thingy's a funny word) is trying to represent - at least my interpretation leads me to believe - is that at the core of everything, absolution from one to the other to both to none, is a necessity if you are to progress any further.All I'm saying is that, just as Foniks said Quote:...any incentive, when you try to give a player a choice it falls between three "human" choices:The path of Moral Right, the path of Personal Ease and the path of Malicious Greed. Most humans bend towards the 2nd rather than the extreme two.Think about the Fallout games (excluding 3- if you've played the originals, you'll know why) and The Witcher. Notice that both follow the exact same principles of design in their "alignment" feature/sAlso, that "don't fail" reference is to the incentive thingy again (brilliant word). If the player cannot progress through their pre-defined path - that is the story - they will quickly find that they hold no interest in anything but ploughing through "good" actions in an endless struggle to reamin on the path that bode "progress" to them. Not... a... "good"... idea at all.NOTE: Not trying to be nasty to you in any way, shape or form; just putting the reply into a no-holds bared form.   ;  Re: The two statusesOne thing you should describe is how the player knows whether he is still staying on the main path or had drifted away. Now it becomes more important because Y can potentially ask M to do different things:Scenario:M could help weaken the boss, strengthen the boss, or strengthen Y. When Y gets to M, Y could choose one of these three paths. Weaken the boss is the default path. But how would Y know?Since Y has additional information, suppose Y gets to M and decides that the boss will use M to strengthen himself. Therefore Y kills M. How would the player know that he had just stepped off the main plot?This was not as important before because the good choice could be obvious or be suggested by npc. Now you need it more because you want the ideas to be originate from the player. 