This week I was working on new fighting mechanics for Knights Province. I want fights to be a little less random. Hence units will have a lot of hitpoints and proper damage range.
Should these numbers show to a player? We’ll see about that later )
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Please no health bars above units heads. What made Kam so special is it’s simple realism. Don’t ruin that.
He’s right.
Don’t worry they can be hidden any time. For now they are essential to re-balance the fighting mechanics.
Totally agreed! What made KaM unique from others is that you don’t know when your troops are going to die! Better than health bars is to implement real fighting like Settlers II.
I have checked both Settlers 2 fighting – 2 units just standing next to each other bashing. Is this what you mean?
I mean that they attack and defend instead of blindly attacking like in any other RTS. The results of a battle between 2 equally ranked units is somewhat random but as they get higher ranks against smaller ranks the higher ranked unit usually win. It is difficulty to show this through youtube videos, in game there is a zoom tool that allows you to see it very well. And I’m refering to Settlers 2, not the anniversary edition which I have not played so I don’t know the mechanics.
We have to make some simplifications because of game’s scale.
It would look very nice, but a waste of resources to make each unit as complex as in RPG (think Dark Souls for example, with over 50 stats and variety of warfare). RTS games scale is about macro-management, so we have to sacrifice “micro” to allow player to play on “macro” level.
Compared to said Settlers 2 – they did not have 100 men armies with groups and formations. Still the results of 2 groups fighting contains equally random element (granted by damage random, tactics and timing, and hits from the back).
With health bar – ok.
If u plan to remove health bar, then u have to rebuild fighting mechanism:
Units don’t have “Health” AT ALL. Units only have random chance to die. This chance depend on who/how attack them.
Hiding of health bar from GUI does not mean it has to be removed and replaced with random. Even more so – such “pure” random should be eradicated, because it has some serious downsides:
– it is much harder to balance,
– it may look bad in the game (e.g. 2 units could fight for tens of minutes because of lucky streaks),
– it may look unfair in the game (because random allows for anything, even weakest unit killing strongest one)
Krom.
– it is much harder to balance:
Way to ideal is not easy way.
– it may look bad in the game (e.g. 2 units could fight for tens of minutes because of lucky streaks)
– it may look unfair in the game (because random allows for anything, even weakest unit killing strongest one)
Ok, Then think about random strike, not about random health.
Random strike (if you mean it’s either hit or miss) is the same thing with the same cons.
Strike can depend on: random value, +- unit u attack& unit in def
Health can be restored by food (slowly or/and in background)
This is how I’m planning it now. Each strike inflicts some damage within specified range (e.g. 7-10). This way each fight (e.g. against 100hp unit) is guaranteed to end within 100/7 – 100/10 hits. Which resolves cons listed above.
Attack and Defence modifiers are likely to be added later, but first they need to be reasoned. I don’t want to add things just because “other games do so”. I want to add them because I know how they work in the game and if they benefit the game in a clear way.
I’m actually for health bars, whether shown or not, but health bars in the form of individualized health. While “realism” may be that we don’t have actual HP hanging around us, a warrior on the battle field definitely has a reduced chance of success when they’re hungered, just left 1 fight and moved into another. In KAM we could have our troops moving to the edges, then when done one skirmish they’re almost instantly thrown into another. A high level collection of troops should be worn and weaken even from emerging victorious from another battle. Having just high rank winning over lower rank, or just mere chance among matching ranks, leads to un-“realistic” play.
Another way to think of it, if your an attacking force, you’ve just made it past watchtowers, maybe a forward stationed set of troops, but now face a similarly ranked squad of troops who are on defense, have yet to battle in the current skirmish, and well-fed. You should expect defeat in this equation as the factors themselves show that the veteran force to be beaten and tired, while the defenders are at full health and preparedness.
It adds a level of logistics and tactical thinking, you’ll need to make attacks by leveraging your forces properly, use archers to wear down your enemy, horsed riders to provide a shock force to weaken the long-distance defender and cut off supplies (food), and then use swordsmen to fight the long battles.
How about collecting strain instead of reducing hit points? There is no hp bar, and there is no dying because you got no hp left. Basicly what i propose is:
1) When enemy atack a certain value is added to oponent strain so, longer he fights the more he will acumulate. There is no maximum value that can be reached!
2) When they attack there is a small chance he will kill opponent, but the chance is ridiculously small at the beginning of fight.
3) The chance of killing oponent is defined by his attack, oponent’s defence and strain his oponent accumulated. There is NO option that certain amount of strain would mean 100% kill chance.
4) Out of battle the strain is slowly reduces over time, so you have to choose wisely when press your attack, and how long let your troops rest.
So you have randomness in battle when a pesant have a chance aganist knight (but it is only pure luck, as it should have been) and you have guaranteed that fight will not last too long as they will constantly accumulate strain. (Yes there is chance they will fight long but with constant increasing chance of death, it will be such small odd that it would have been trully fate for them to fight that long.)
From mathematical point of view kill chance can be like:
Kill chance in %: (1 – (1/(x*a))*100)
where “x” is acumulatet strain and “a” is modifier based on unit atack and oponent defence* (“a” should be somewhere between 0 and 1 )
* can be as simple as: atack – defence
Good luck
Thank you for ideas guys! 🙂
I’d like to keep things “as simple as they can be, but not simpler”. What you have described above is very much alike KaM fighting mechanics, whose cons were listed earlier.
Didn’t know that the chance for kill was increasing over time in KaM.
It was not, AFAIK. But it has the same cons. To paraphrase – “no matter how low probability is, if it is there – it will occur next Tuesday”.
Hmm what about archers doing more damage if they have the highground?
Wouldn’t that give the battle a bit more strategic depth, in case of an attack at your city
especially if you have walls?
or maybe higher range?
I’m looking forward to adding more strategic depth through terrain heights )