Post by outerlimits on Oct 12, 2011 11:00:00 GMT -5
Alright, so, since Ice wants me to implement the life system now because he's off handling "stuff", I guess I'll detail what we've worked out (and what I've seen from our test fight) here.
Life
When a fight starts, every participate begins with their Life ("Health Bar") at 100%. The only exception to this is if, say, your guy was running away from someone and took some damage before you started fighting them. In that case, you health would start at lower than 100%. Or if you have a natural ability giving you more health.
As your character gets hit by attacks in a fight, that percentage decreases based on the power of the attack. Attacks have damage values that are percentages, so you just subtract that number from your remaining life to get your new life total. (Ex. I get hit by a 10% damaging attack. My life is at 100% 100 - 10 = 90. My life is now at 90%)
It's the same way with attacks that heal you, except instead of subtracting, you add the percentage.
Walls, Barriers, Shields, and other constructs/summons also have Life totals. Most standard barriers and shields have 5% life, which lets them absorb 1 attack or two depending on the strength of the attack. Walls will probably have more, around 10%. Life totals for summons should probably be discussed with Ice and I, but in general the more powerful the summon, the more Life it has.
Once your character's Life total hits 0%, they are KOed, Killed, or otherwise incapacitated and can no longer fight. This doesn't mean you can't do anything else with that character, it just means that your character loses the fight and, usually, the fight ends (unless there are more than 2 characters involved).
In real fights (aka not any fights in Merlin's arena), hitting 0% causing your character to "technically" be KOed from exhaustion, wounds, etc. However, you can "push" your character, giving them 10% more life. If you still lose after that, your character is dead, and there is no way to bring them back.
Damage
Every attack in Nine Hearts must have a damage value assigned to it that is appropriate for the strength or nature of the attack.
I cannot stress the last part of that above statement strongly enough. Don't go around giving 50% damage to pebble throws is basically what that means. And for your signature abilities, don't make them all do the most damage they can do for their level. There's a reason there's a range; use it.
The safest route to go is to PM either Ice or myself about your ideas for how strong you want your attacks to be and we will work with you on it. Don't think we're out to make your guys weak though. We're just trying keep things within in the rules/balanced.
There are 8 damage value ranges that you can pick from for an attack. Note: The names of these are susceptible to change and the corresponding damage values may be modified on a "have-to" basis as Ice and I see fit. In general though, these should stay pretty constant.
1-3% - Non-Stated Attacks
4-9% - Signature Attacks
1-15 - Elemental Styles
10-17 - Physical Styles
10-15 - Mini Ultimates
20-25 - Ultimates
26-30 - Transcendent Empyreal Absolutes, otherwise known as TEAs
31-50 - Snape Tier
51-100 - Merlin Tier
Non-Stated Attacks are like kicks, punches, sword slashes, magic that doesn't have a name in your "created moves" section, etc. These are weak, "auto-attacks" essentially that you use.
Signature Attacks are all the moves you create and name for your character.
Elemental Styles are styles that let you use and control an element more effectively, taking on its properties and its weaknesses. Ex: Marcella's Earth Rift Style.
Physical Styles are styles that give you 3 named attacks of that element that are rather powerful and then the style ends. Ex: Marcella's Crystal Style.
Mini Ults are attacks that don't quite reach the level of ultimate, but are still real powerful. These are now available to all characters.
Ultimates are very powerful abilities. Every character gets to have 1 ultimate and it can have a variety of uses and effects, from lots of damage to spammability to utility to healing to just about anything else.
Transcendent Empyreal Absolutes, otherwise known as TEAs, are the most powerful attacks possible in Nine Hearts. They represent the pinnacle of magical attack with any given element or other type of magic. While enormously powerful, all TEAs come with a backfire effect. These could be burns from using a Fire TEA to frostbite from using an Ice TEA or anything else we come up with. Ice and I come up with a set TEA for every type of magic. Any character that wants a TEA for that magic type will get the same TEA.
Snape Tier attacks are around the power level of Snape. However, even Snape can't reach the power of...
Merlin Tier. Attacks here can do just about anything.
Attacks that heal also must be within these ranges, although their values are a bit different. Mainly, Healing abilities depend on your characters rank in either Healing Magic or Healing/Rejuvenation Magic and the spell you are casting. As a rule of thumb, healing Magic costs more mana to use but heals you instantly while Healing/Rejuvenation Magic costs less mana to use but heals you over time.
Even though abilities will have set damage values, you can also make abilities do more damage by pumping more mana into the ability (Which you'll notice has happened often in the flashback fight Ice and I are doing between Marcella and Lladnar). However, obviously this will drain your mana quickly, so use it cautiously. You're opponent could always dodge the attack or block it.
NOTE: THERE ARE NO DECIMALS IN DAMAGE VALUES. THEY HAVE TO BE WHOLE NUMBERS. NO 12.5% OR 33.3% DAMAGE, ONLY WHOLE NUMBERS LIKE 12% AND 33%.
Reducing/Increasing Damage
Due to either the nature of a character's racial ability or through spell/environmental effects, there will be cases where the damage of an attack is either increased or decreased.
When dealing with this, the effect increasing/decreasing the damage of an attack must have a percentage assigned to it.
Let's take, for example, the Frost Dragon racial. Frost Dragon's reduce elemental magic damage they take by 20%. So, an attack that would deal 10% damage only deals 8% damage to a Frost Dragon if it is Elemental damage.
When making abilities that increase the damage of spells or reduce the damage of spells, make sure to be REASONABLE with the damage reduction/increase the spell effect is giving. It's most likely a good idea to talk with Ice or myself about it (yet again >_>) since we don't it to be too powerful. Still, don't be shy about making it a sizable increase/decrease. These kind of things I, at least, don't really mind too much, as long as it doesn't make the attack an auto-hitter or something.
Ice and myself will handle an specific values for the racials though, so don't worry about making up things for those.
Mana
((I'll fill in this section when Ice and I finish working on it))
Life
When a fight starts, every participate begins with their Life ("Health Bar") at 100%. The only exception to this is if, say, your guy was running away from someone and took some damage before you started fighting them. In that case, you health would start at lower than 100%. Or if you have a natural ability giving you more health.
As your character gets hit by attacks in a fight, that percentage decreases based on the power of the attack. Attacks have damage values that are percentages, so you just subtract that number from your remaining life to get your new life total. (Ex. I get hit by a 10% damaging attack. My life is at 100% 100 - 10 = 90. My life is now at 90%)
It's the same way with attacks that heal you, except instead of subtracting, you add the percentage.
Walls, Barriers, Shields, and other constructs/summons also have Life totals. Most standard barriers and shields have 5% life, which lets them absorb 1 attack or two depending on the strength of the attack. Walls will probably have more, around 10%. Life totals for summons should probably be discussed with Ice and I, but in general the more powerful the summon, the more Life it has.
Once your character's Life total hits 0%, they are KOed, Killed, or otherwise incapacitated and can no longer fight. This doesn't mean you can't do anything else with that character, it just means that your character loses the fight and, usually, the fight ends (unless there are more than 2 characters involved).
In real fights (aka not any fights in Merlin's arena), hitting 0% causing your character to "technically" be KOed from exhaustion, wounds, etc. However, you can "push" your character, giving them 10% more life. If you still lose after that, your character is dead, and there is no way to bring them back.
Damage
Every attack in Nine Hearts must have a damage value assigned to it that is appropriate for the strength or nature of the attack.
I cannot stress the last part of that above statement strongly enough. Don't go around giving 50% damage to pebble throws is basically what that means. And for your signature abilities, don't make them all do the most damage they can do for their level. There's a reason there's a range; use it.
The safest route to go is to PM either Ice or myself about your ideas for how strong you want your attacks to be and we will work with you on it. Don't think we're out to make your guys weak though. We're just trying keep things within in the rules/balanced.
There are 8 damage value ranges that you can pick from for an attack. Note: The names of these are susceptible to change and the corresponding damage values may be modified on a "have-to" basis as Ice and I see fit. In general though, these should stay pretty constant.
1-3% - Non-Stated Attacks
4-9% - Signature Attacks
1-15 - Elemental Styles
10-17 - Physical Styles
10-15 - Mini Ultimates
20-25 - Ultimates
26-30 - Transcendent Empyreal Absolutes, otherwise known as TEAs
31-50 - Snape Tier
51-100 - Merlin Tier
Non-Stated Attacks are like kicks, punches, sword slashes, magic that doesn't have a name in your "created moves" section, etc. These are weak, "auto-attacks" essentially that you use.
Signature Attacks are all the moves you create and name for your character.
Elemental Styles are styles that let you use and control an element more effectively, taking on its properties and its weaknesses. Ex: Marcella's Earth Rift Style.
Physical Styles are styles that give you 3 named attacks of that element that are rather powerful and then the style ends. Ex: Marcella's Crystal Style.
Mini Ults are attacks that don't quite reach the level of ultimate, but are still real powerful. These are now available to all characters.
Ultimates are very powerful abilities. Every character gets to have 1 ultimate and it can have a variety of uses and effects, from lots of damage to spammability to utility to healing to just about anything else.
Transcendent Empyreal Absolutes, otherwise known as TEAs, are the most powerful attacks possible in Nine Hearts. They represent the pinnacle of magical attack with any given element or other type of magic. While enormously powerful, all TEAs come with a backfire effect. These could be burns from using a Fire TEA to frostbite from using an Ice TEA or anything else we come up with. Ice and I come up with a set TEA for every type of magic. Any character that wants a TEA for that magic type will get the same TEA.
Snape Tier attacks are around the power level of Snape. However, even Snape can't reach the power of...
Merlin Tier. Attacks here can do just about anything.
Attacks that heal also must be within these ranges, although their values are a bit different. Mainly, Healing abilities depend on your characters rank in either Healing Magic or Healing/Rejuvenation Magic and the spell you are casting. As a rule of thumb, healing Magic costs more mana to use but heals you instantly while Healing/Rejuvenation Magic costs less mana to use but heals you over time.
Even though abilities will have set damage values, you can also make abilities do more damage by pumping more mana into the ability (Which you'll notice has happened often in the flashback fight Ice and I are doing between Marcella and Lladnar). However, obviously this will drain your mana quickly, so use it cautiously. You're opponent could always dodge the attack or block it.
NOTE: THERE ARE NO DECIMALS IN DAMAGE VALUES. THEY HAVE TO BE WHOLE NUMBERS. NO 12.5% OR 33.3% DAMAGE, ONLY WHOLE NUMBERS LIKE 12% AND 33%.
Reducing/Increasing Damage
Due to either the nature of a character's racial ability or through spell/environmental effects, there will be cases where the damage of an attack is either increased or decreased.
When dealing with this, the effect increasing/decreasing the damage of an attack must have a percentage assigned to it.
Let's take, for example, the Frost Dragon racial. Frost Dragon's reduce elemental magic damage they take by 20%. So, an attack that would deal 10% damage only deals 8% damage to a Frost Dragon if it is Elemental damage.
When making abilities that increase the damage of spells or reduce the damage of spells, make sure to be REASONABLE with the damage reduction/increase the spell effect is giving. It's most likely a good idea to talk with Ice or myself about it (yet again >_>) since we don't it to be too powerful. Still, don't be shy about making it a sizable increase/decrease. These kind of things I, at least, don't really mind too much, as long as it doesn't make the attack an auto-hitter or something.
Ice and myself will handle an specific values for the racials though, so don't worry about making up things for those.
Mana
((I'll fill in this section when Ice and I finish working on it))
