^Whatever happened to the playtesting idea?
I've been so much at my wit's end dealing with moving digitaldevildb.com, I've been avoiding the internet like the plague.
I have been working with SoM (actual game tweaking) a little, but I've been meaning to try that VMware setup of yours before I really pick it back up. I have a hard time grasping the damage functions. I think an obvious thing we need though is a little damage calculator program. Something that would let you put in like if the player is setup thusly versus this monster setup, then how much defense should the monster need to have in order to kill it in X hits... compute.
Just adjusting a monster then jumping into the game to test it is impossible I think... if you really want control over the experience that is.
Not being more transparent the damage formula should have just been linear I think. It might've been more restrictive that way, but at least you could wrap your head around it without being a fucking rocket scientist (though I'm sure once I do figure it out, the formula will probably be very simple)
Like I am slowly learning the limits of my project (which has fairly tightly constrained parameters in the first place) ...but just setting up the Termite Queen boss (though I'm pretty sure I've changed the name to Antlion unless Tom cries foul) ...I have it so if you hit a Termite with the mourning star (they're weak to smash) with full swing at the beginning of the game they die in one hit. Every monster in my game has 100hp (makes things a little tricky overall but eliminates a variable for me) ...but anyway their base is 16def. Then if I set the queens base to 64, she dies too fast to be a challenge. But if I set it to say 96, she never dies ever (I'm beginning to think the hp regen option actually slowly regens hp) ...so there is a huge non-linear disparity going on there. I think the magic number was like 72, but she was still too tough. I think you're expected to get increasingly more powerful weapons, so everything ramps up pretty quick. I have a general idea of what the window is I have to work in, given I actually let the player start the game with the best weapons more or less (all the weapons are balance Armored Core style) ...but I still have trouble dealing with the non-linear ramps when setting the adjust parameters, they're just so damn sensitive, and I'm afraid I'm making some attack types too powerful versus others, which isn't so bad... but they also all add together in the end, so that's hard to get a hang of too.
Still seems crazy to tweak on a one at a time basis. Strength doesn't seem to make a whole heck of a lot of difference in my situation thankfully. The player gets more of a benefit from being able to swing faster than actual damage potential. I did notice I'll have to adjust my "encumbrance" system some, because by endgame strength the player can carry around like 3 full sets of armor and still use the dash function with the current events.
Not to hijack the thread. But I recently picked up "Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection" (you can't argue with 40 classics/virtual console type games for 30$) which has a game called Fatal Labyrinth... not quite as good as it's Master System (MarkIII) predecessor Dragon Crystal... neither especially spectacular. But these games actually have gameplay systems very similar too all the different stuff I'm doing with my project (a Maunstraut remix for anyone not in the know)
^That is your HP regenerates, while your other stat is your general condition (sleep/food/thirst) which ultimately begins to gnaw away at your HP if not kept in check. There are also other elements very similar. Kind of inspires me to make one of the towers in DoM mimic the format of these games somehow. Mostly randomized floors, and once you enter you can't save/leave, and if there is some way to leave you loose all the items associated with the tower and must start anew. That's a good premise for a remake of the final area I think.
*Never realized "gnaw" was spelled that way. There should be a GNU app called gnaw (if there isn't already)
Anyway, I agree that the balancing act is the most daunting aspect of a SoM project. I'd really like to focus on making it more manageable somehow any way possible. We really need to try to document it and prepare tutorials on this subject as much as possible. Don't make all your work in vain. Try to make sense of it and write it down.
