something big

[Figure Fan]

As for team size, I would say no more than 5 normally.  It becomes impossible to really control anything much beyond that.  There's a reason the FF games used 4.

EDIT
If you do still want to do a close approximation of FF itself, I would like to propose the following alterations to the FF power system.

FF had a set up where you picked the damage type, then chance to stun and could tweak other magnitude levels and power costs and such.  This is so limiting that FFX found a way around it.

So instead you first choose the damage category. (physical, energy, mental, and so forth)  Ideally the list of types should come from a scripting function so modders and change them however they like.  The actual category has no effect by itself other than to determine resistances and such.

After that, you would pick a primary and secondary effect and their respective magnitutes.  So, for example, you can make Mental the category, Damage the primary effect, and Hold the secondary effect, making it a mental attack that causes damage and also has a change of holding the enemy, both depending on its resistance to mental damage.

Note that this system can still exactly duplicate any power made in FF.  A Fire primary Damage secondary Stun would be exactly the same as a regular FF Fire attack, for example; it just adds a ton of new possibilities in a easy to use package.

I would like to second this. Great ideas, Cat.

[Randomdays]

I have a question on control. One thing in RTS's I would have liked that FF didn't have was setting up a command queue. Is this something already done/scripted or can be done? Or is it still too early in the process to look at? Another RTS/RPG function would be commands to party members like "follow me", "guard me" or "attack target till told otherwise". 

[bearded]

ai will be scripted in c#. i'm going to do a basic ai, and i'm going to try and open it up to python so you guys that are way better at ai than me can come up with custom commands.
cat's ideas are good. i'm thinking each power can have 2 special effects. damage over time, hold, stun, knockback, etc. and leave each power be customizable as to which two. does that sound good?

[Figure Fan]

ai will be scripted in c#. i'm going to do a basic ai, and i'm going to try and open it up to python so you guys that are way better at ai than me can come up with custom commands.
cat's ideas are good. i'm thinking each power can have 2 special effects. damage over time, hold, stun, knockback, etc. and leave each power be customizable as to which two. does that sound good?

That does sound pretty good, actually.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

cat's ideas are good. i'm thinking each power can have 2 special effects. damage over time, hold, stun, knockback, etc. and leave each power be customizable as to which two. does that sound good?

That's basically what I'm saying, bearded, just make regular old damage one of those effects for ultimate customizability.

Also, I would advise not putting the effects into the engine at all, except for something basic for testing before python (or whatever you decide to use) is integrated.  Instead the engine just calls up python for all attack effects.

Here's what I mean.  Let's say you have a power that does fire damage and stun.  For this example, both damage and stun as set to there highest level.  This is in turn turned into a number from 1-100.  Since we've set it for the highest setting, it's 100 for both.

Now we use this fire burst again an enemy with a high fire resistence.  Let's say for example purposes that the highest fire resistance reduces damage to 25%.  So the engine takes the 100 magnitute of both damage and stun effects and reduces it to 25%, so 25 for each.  Then it simply passes that along to the python functions.  The format would be, say power_effectname("powerusername", "powervictimname", magnitute).  So for damage in this case, the number would be 25 and the function would be power_damage().  The damage function then take the 25 magnitute, does some math on it to turn that into a hp damage number, the uses the victim name to reduce the victim's hp by the set amount.  Easy peasy.

And with all powers set to python like that, then can be easily modified, added to, and you can get some people like me to help you make all of them, reducing your own workload.

EDIT:  I just realize the power effect function should add what type of damage that power it's in does, just in case we wanted to take that into account, so a fire hold lasts longer again those with a weakness to fire, for example.  So that makes the function say power_effectname("powerusername", "powervictimname", "powertype", magnitute).  All just for example of course.

[BentonGrey]

I think that's a great idea Cat.  That would make the power creation process more nuanced, and that is definitely a good thing.  Ha, you lost me with the technical bit though.

RandomDays, I think that's a good idea.  A command queue, even the ability to set waypoints, would be really handy for team management.  Something that is absolutely VITAL, though, is the ability to tell a character to use a power continuously.  I can't believe that was left out of FF2. 

Here are a few gameplay/design issues I've been thinking about.  First off, Bearded asked how large controllable teams should be, and that's a really interesting question to me.  FF's team size of four was just about perfect, gameplay-wise.  It allowed for missions that were challenging, but heroes who still felt powerful and heroic.  If you've got a team of 10 super powered guys around, it is going to be really hard to give them a decent challenge.  I know ALL about this from my JLA campaign!  However, that's about the CAMPAIGN, which shouldn't necessarily dictate every aspect of game design.  Personally, and this is, of course, contingent upon how hard something like this would be to do, I recommend having the ability to bring several characters into the game at once.  Five would be a reasonable ceiling, but I think higher might be better.  Then, you can always limit how many characters are available for any given mission, but have the ABILITY to bring in more when necessary.  I'm just thinking about how the FFX team has had to find ways around the four man limit in the rumble room and other things.  We don't want to put a hard cap on something like that if we don't have to do so.

Second, I realize that this is a ways off, but I think it might be worthwhile to talk about character building strategies.  As far as it is possible, I think it is definitely the right idea to copy FF.  However, we've all struggled with the lack of gradation in the FF powerscheme.  I think that a 20 point attribute system would give us much better gradation without being overly complicated.  I think it goes without saying that an energy system like FF1 is almost a necessity.

Third, resistances should be customizable in some fashion.  I always liked the idea of material types, but they are pretty restrictive.  So, we could have material selection provide a set of resistances which can then be customized for points.

Alright, that's all I've got at the moment.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

I would also be in favor of changes to the resistance system.  Here's a couple of ideas.

First of all, I think divorcing material types from resistances would not be an altogether different thing.  Or alter how to it works.  Two ways this can be done.
1.  Selecting a material type sets up a default set of resistances, which can be changed or ignored as you wish.  It's  merely a suggestion and the material type is there mostly for interaction with certain powers.
2.  Selecting a material type sets up the default configuration AND sets the cost of raising/lower the different resistance types.  So for example a metal character would be weak to electricity by default.  You could raise that character's resistance to electricity, but it would be expensive.  Making it even more vulnerable would give back a ton of points though.  Actually, forget the default, just making it set the price to raise/lower would do it by itself I think.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I like method 2.

And yeah, either way, allow resistances to be raised or lowered individually, with the price varying depending on the type being considered and possibly the material type if you like suggestion 2 above.  And just to make things clearer, make the resistance a percentage rather than a word, so if you take a 25% penalty, you know what you're getting, not just "vulnerable."

[bearded]

i'm going to start working on the character generator, make it really polished. we need to get some solid ideas about attributes and what they do. also, need to decide on the basic mesh models we are going to use. the engine supports a higher poly count, and with some of the morphing i'm doing, the old standard looks very blocky at times.
i am looking at http://www.mixamo.com/
they let you create your own mesh and download it for free! the only downside is the animations that will work with it are from the site. that means, i can purchase a set of animations from them, and then players can build their own characters to import into the game engine, and they will work with the set i buy. i think. they create them based on the fbx format, so that means that meshers can add animations and tweak the meshes.
how does that sound?

as for the resistances and damages and things, what i plan on doing is setting up the basic combat system, and then sending a copy of the c# to cat or benton or anyone that wants to add things. they can send it back, and i can import it into the engine. ultimately, i'm going to use the python plug in for ultimate modding, but for now, c# is the best way to go to set up the base engine.

[Randomdays]

What kind of animations do they have available? Are there ones set up for most of the FF superhero functions - flight, takeoff/land, the various area effects, hand/arm out in weapon/beam attack mode?

How are you handling animations in the game? does each character have one large kf type file to handle all its animations, or is each action handled by an individual routine?

Can you take a kf from FF or FFVTTR and make it work? While the poly count may be low, if we could tie the armature and kfs that go with to a higher count mesh then that might save a lot of work.

And for that matter, I was wondering, with the vastly increased power of today's PCs, what would happen if we took a higher poly mesh, say from Ultimate Alliance 1 or 2, and put it in FF? I've already put in mesh's from Elite Force from 2002, which is close to FF in look, and they work alright.

[lugaru]

I would also be in favor of changes to the resistance system.  Here's a couple of ideas.

First of all, I think divorcing material types from resistances would not be an altogether different thing.  Or alter how to it works.  Two ways this can be done.
1.  Selecting a material type sets up a default set of resistances, which can be changed or ignored as you wish.  It's  merely a suggestion and the material type is there mostly for interaction with certain powers.
2.  Selecting a material type sets up the default configuration AND sets the cost of raising/lower the different resistance types.  So for example a metal character would be weak to electricity by default.  You could raise that character's resistance to electricity, but it would be expensive.  Making it even more vulnerable would give back a ton of points though.  Actually, forget the default, just making it set the price to raise/lower would do it by itself I think.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I like method 2.

And yeah, either way, allow resistances to be raised or lowered individually, with the price varying depending on the type being considered and possibly the material type if you like suggestion 2 above.  And just to make things clearer, make the resistance a percentage rather than a word, so if you take a 25% penalty, you know what you're getting, not just "vulnerable."

I love the idea of editing material types... that way "metal" could be cranked up and called tinanium, adamantium or whatever, but still be metal as far as any masters of magnetism are concerned.

As for defense in general I like the concept of Armor and Density... Armor is subtracting points because of a coat of armor, such as -5 damage on piercing and bashing due to bullet proof vest. Density is what the character is made from, so it is like -25% everything since he is made from stone. It goes into the spanish concept of "soy" and "estoy".

[lugaru]

i'm going to start working on the character generator, make it really polished. we need to get some solid ideas about attributes and what they do.

I think to decide attributes we need to decide in what ways the heroes can interact iwth the world.

Absolutely required:
Strenght: They need to lift things, break things, punch things.
Speed: They need to get from point A to point B.
Health: Characters need to eventually drop.
Energy: I think some abilities need to use up a limited resource so they are not spammed.

Maybe: (these might be covered completely by resistances, powers and other stuff)
Endurance: What does endurance do? Modify max health? Increase resistance? Decrease chance of negative effects?
Power: The "Strenght" for non punching. Usable to influence telekinesis, blasts, etc.
Will: Kind of like power has a lovechild with endurance... the characters ability to not cave in to influence, pain, etc.

Probably not:
Intelligence: I would rather go for character attributes like "scientist" as a requirement to perform actions rather than an intelligence stat.
Charisma: this is not a bioware game... I doubt we will have conversation trees, merchants and team mates you are trying to get it on with.
Agility/Skill: I'm guessing that dodging, accuracy and such are in the realm of individual powers rather than an overal modifier.
Coolness: that will be determined by the number of pouches, guns and muscles on the mesh, not a stat.     

[Randomdays]

Endurance and Will could be used for recovery rate of health/ energy. Instead of using FF's method of using a powerup to regain full health, I would have preferred the standard method of recovering health over time.

While resistance and material could decrease damage by type, maybe it could heal as well. IE hit Iceman with a freeze ray and he could use the energy to heal himself.

[bearded]

RandomDays, the mixamo animations are fairly basic, but can be modified in 3ds max. each character can use any animation seperatly from any set, as long as the bones match. so any male cape or male basic can use either flight. you could script in to change the flight animation midgame for cutscenes.
lugaru that sounds like a good basic setup. we have time to work out the details, the parts part of character customization is bogging me down. if anyone would be willing to take a tommyboy versatile and simply nifskope out the different parts as different objects, we'd have a nearly complete character customizer ready. if anyone volunteers, let me know, and i'll tell you how to do it right.
as for heal over time, i like that. i never liked city of heroes medic characters. you hardly ever see that in comics. i like your idea of freeze ray healing. that could be one of the stats. what energy or material heals you, customizable, and how much. you could make a character who gets hp back from dr pepper.

i also like the idea of player created materials and energy types. player comes up with the name of it and one type it is resistant to and one type it is vulnerable to.

[spydermann93]

I think that Passive Defenses and Active Defenses should have an extra option to only block a certain magnitude of hits.

It bothered me how a little shield could block a batarang and an armor piercing round from a .50 cal rifle with the same efficiency.

[vamp]

I have to agree with Spyder. If thats possible, it would be cool to implement.

While this really doesn't have much to do with character creation, I was wondering if it was possible to separate a weapon from its user. For instance, if Cap threw his shield and is attacked at the same time, his shield magically reappears and he blocks. So I was wondering if it was feasible to make it that when he throws his shield, he cannot call it back magically, or at least that he cant block with it.

[lugaru]

I think that Passive Defenses and Active Defenses should have an extra option to only block a certain magnitude of hits.

It bothered me how a little shield could block a batarang and an armor piercing round from a .50 cal rifle with the same efficiency.

This is something that was implemented in FFX although I avoided it for most characters since Mike had to jump through some serious hoops to get it to work (it was not in the original game) therefore it never felt 100% right. Seeing it at the core of the new game would be really cool.

As for items being separable that would be awesome, to be able to have actual items and inventory. If possible, great, if they are all just whatever the mesh allows, well ces la vie.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Hmm...how about adding a tag to powers that make those "object dependent."  This causes the object to start with the character, but if he loses the object, those powers become unusable.  So if cap uses an object dependant "throw shield" power that also has a tag that causes it to use the item in question, he loses his shield defence abilities.  Along the same line, have an "object optional" tag that allows a character to use optional animations depending on whether on object is present or not.  Again, we'll use cap.  Let's say he has a power called "bash."  If he has the shield, he's use it to bash the bad guy.  If he doesn't, he'll use his fist instead.

[bearded]

Hmm...how about adding a tag to powers that make those "object dependent."  This causes the object to start with the character, but if he loses the object, those powers become unusable.  So if cap uses an object dependant "throw shield" power that also has a tag that causes it to use the item in question, he loses his shield defence abilities.  Along the same line, have an "object optional" tag that allows a character to use optional animations depending on whether on object is present or not.  Again, we'll use cap.  Let's say he has a power called "bash."  If he has the shield, he's use it to bash the bad guy.  If he doesn't, he'll use his fist instead.

for the character generator, i am making dummies called "mount points". if that gives you any indication.

[bearded]

working on a character tool now. what you are seeing is the Muscular (male_basic) mesh with weapon #5.

i will remove, or move, or toggle all the different buttons you are seeing, but eventually they will all represent different mount points for different objects, such as collars or gloves, or anything. switching skins of the different weapons and mounts will allow a lot of customization.

[Cyber Burn]

That is really sweet Bearded, I'll try to get you a few variant colors for the "Male_Basic".

[lugaru]

That is really cool... now are all objects part of the mesh or are they separate meshes, textures and alphas that are attatched to the mesh?

Just wondering cuz a "sims" approach would be cool, where somebody can design a cool cape and toss it in, making it available for all compatible meshes.

[Figure Fan]

I like this approach to character creation. It's sort of like The Sims and CoH combined.

[bearded]

That is really cool... now are all objects part of the mesh or are they separate meshes, textures and alphas that are attatched to the mesh?

Just wondering cuz a "sims" approach would be cool, where somebody can design a cool cape and toss it in, making it available for all compatible meshes.

they are seperate objects. objects can be made with any 3d software, unity will import nearly everything.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Very promising start, bearded.  Looks like you're trying for the best of both worlds approach, and it looks like one that might actually work rather well.  Seems like you really know what you're doing here.

[bearded]

i want all characters to have several mount points, and if you pick up an item during a mission, it mounts appropriately and you get it's powers. how many mount points do you think there should be?
for power generation i am thinking along the lines of science, biological, and mystical. powers are tagged as one of the 3, scientific powers are item or battery powered, and can be acquired by anyone picking up the tech. mystical powers are similiar, item based, but can only be used by magic characters, channellers. biological powers are the third type, only usable by individuals.
this isn't perfect, it doesn't leave room for spellcasters or cyborgs for example, so i'm thinking i need more generic terms to fit those categories. any ideas?

[lugaru]

I've got a long post I wrote last week but decided not to put it up so I saved it in a word document. I'll post it when I get to work, because it is along the lines of the things you are talking about.

[bearded]

i might have a fully functional character tool by next week! i have managed to get the skin to change on command.

what you are seeing is male heavy using a male basic skin. and the second pic is a little more troubling to me. in my process of managing weapons and hair styles, i discovered it will be very easy to set up various skins on the same mesh. that is 2 of cyberburn's skin on the same male basic. this means in addition to adding parts and pieces with the click of a button, mixing skins with the right face, hands, legs, feet uvw setup will be super easy. this means character tool level kitbashing, in effect.
should i abandon this area of learning? stick with simple skin switching?
or should i follow this, and maybe alter the uvw mapping so that new skins have to be made, those made with the intention of this sort of mixing?
my idea is to allow total character creation with the character tool, stats, attributes, powers, and complete mesh/skin setup, and exporting that as a hero file that can be imported into the game, or set up as mod ingame characters.

[lugaru]

Very cool progress! I love the idea of mixing and matching, and hopefully at least a minority of the forums talents would not mind seeing pieces of their work show up in the character creator.

Here is the long idea rant I promised. It pertains to the idea of giving powers different sources and attatching powers to items.





There are my "Long term" things I would love to see:

Cooldowns:

Some powers would require a cooldown between uses, giving us a bit of "easy" AI (superman does not constantly use freeze breath!) and limits how many times we see 'em in a battle (10 minute cooldown means you wont see an attack more than once or twice). Also some powers could start with it used already, so for example you could have a villain where if he survives 5 minutes his cooldown refreshes and he can do something really dangerous.

Examples:

Iron Fist: +10 bashing damage. 1 minute cooldown.
Reinforcements: 5 minute cooldown, starts already used, summons 5 thugs.

Power Origins

A word or two attatched to each power, which makes them suceptible to enhancements and dampening effects. That way a "mystic medalion" could enhance Magic based powers or an EMP bomb could disable Tech based powers.

Example:

Cyclops
Punch
Blast (mutant)
Mega Blast (mutant)

That way a mutant who cancels mutant powers would make everything but Punch unavailable.

Superman
Punch
Flight (Alien: Kryptonian)
Super Strength: (Alien: Kryptonian)
Heat Vision: (Alien: Kryptonian)
Etc.

Well Kryptonite has an aura of canceling Alien: Kryptonian powers, so bam, those are gone. Ideally something like Super Strenght would be a power (like 10x Str) meaning that Clark would go from mighty to average.

Character Meta Tags

If this catches on we will end up with 500+ hero files, by multiple authors. I think simple user defined tags would make things easy. Anyone can write any tag that he thinks is helpful in finding hero files or establishing connections between them. For example:

Spider-Man: Super Hero, Marvel, Peter Parker, Mutant, Avenger, New Avenger, Fantastic Four, Taskmaster

That way if I click on my cloud, on Marvel I get all marvel characters. Same goes if I want to quickly build a New Avengers team for a fight. Lastly if I want all Taskmaster files, I click on Taskmaster. Also say if I had a Hank Pym one and I clicked on it I would get Ant-Man, Giant Man, Atlas, Wasp and all his other personas over the years.

Power Stacks

Remember the premade powers in Freedom Force? Imagine if you can combine powers and attributes into a larger attribute, for instant power granting. That way you can drop "Vampire" on Jubilee for a recent marvel storyline or "Yellow Lantern Ring" on Batman for a fan geekout moment. Same goes for items... such as Symbiote Suit (which changes your default skin), Iron Man Armor (changes your mesh) or Cosmic Cube (an item you hold, and MAN does it have a lot of powers stacked on it!).

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Pretty good ideas Lugaru, and another reason why scripting should be enabled asap, because it makes it a lot easier to intergrate text tags and things like that if we have it set up that way off the bat.

Some powers would require a cooldown between uses, giving us a bit of "easy" AI (superman does not constantly use freeze breath!) and limits how many times we see 'em in a battle (10 minute cooldown means you wont see an attack more than once or twice). Also some powers could start with it used already, so for example you could have a villain where if he survives 5 minutes his cooldown refreshes and he can do something really dangerous.

I'd also like to see cooldowns, although for a couple other reasons.  In FF, you could easily game the system by creating a character with one really powerful, but low to no energy power.  Making one uber power would cost as much a several lesser ones, so it was easy to do.  Cooldowns can be attached to the power level of a power though, to solve that.  Try to do that with cooldowns tied to power, and you end up with a really powerful, no energy kill power--that you can only use ever so many seconds.  So much for gaming the system.

Power Origins

A word or two attatched to each power, which makes them suceptible to enhancements and dampening effects. That way a "mystic medalion" could enhance Magic based powers or an EMP bomb could disable Tech based powers.

Hadn't though of that, but yes, good idea.  Have some standard tags with the base game, but modders can add their own of course.

Character Meta Tags

If this catches on we will end up with 500+ hero files, by multiple authors. I think simple user defined tags would make things easy. Anyone can write any tag that he thinks is helpful in finding hero files or establishing connections between them. For example:

could be done as well

Power Stacks

Remember the premade powers in Freedom Force? Imagine if you can combine powers and attributes into a larger attribute, for instant power granting. That way you can drop "Vampire" on Jubilee for a recent marvel storyline or "Yellow Lantern Ring" on Batman for a fan geekout moment. Same goes for items... such as Symbiote Suit (which changes your default skin), Iron Man Armor (changes your mesh) or Cosmic Cube (an item you hold, and MAN does it have a lot of powers stacked on it!).

That is the type of thing best done with scripting, imo, but more fully integrated than FFX does.  If all powers and attributes are already scripting based rather than part of the main game, than stuff like this will be a snap to do.

[UnkoMan]

I really haven't been following this too much, but it certainly looks very cool.

I just wanted to say that, from a skinning standpoint, feel free to use any of mine for your mixing and matching. And, depending on how things turn out, who knows? Doing random little things (various coloured tops and bottoms, etc) might be something I would be interested in. I am not 100% on how it is working...