dont much care for haveing to be realy reflexive when moveing around monsters in RPGs. I thought maybe a cool solution would be that when a monster or you go agressive on one another a window pops up kind of like in Final fantasy seven, and you have the option of moveing across the landscape as well as spells and as more monsters joined the fight they would enter into the combat that would be like rings around the player the angle would depend on where they entered combat and they would be placed in a line up and oftenness would depend on there stats, if other players entered combat they would be subjected to the same being placed with in one of the rings, and monsters and players would have the option to migrate through rings when they opened up holes between eachother so they could either run or mass up when you run through monsters depending on stats you may make it through, you may take damage, or you may get stunned and stuck back in the circle.
This would create a void for new spells, near area teleporting both on yourself, monsters, and other players would become very useful. for example makeing all the monsters into one big mass and then sending down a area of effect spell. Slow down and stop spells would still be useful because you could define proximity in the rings to back off and attack.
I still think First person style is cool and it should be kept for moveing around, but I like this system for combat because its more strategic and less coardination, wich is also good for parapelegic players
How it would work:
*You travel along the land see a monster and say \"gee that looks like a good fight\" and as soon as you or the monster takes the first swing your entered into a circle since there is only one monster and your useing a weapon the game considers how big the circle between you and the monster is and places the monster on part of the circle faceing you. since you started the fight you get the first strike ( wich might ofcoarse be affected by a spell so the monster gets the first strike ) the game calculates how much more agility you or the monster have over eachother and if one has a considerable amount more, or under the effect of a spell they may get more turns ( simaler to Final Fantasy 7 )
-If you engaged in combat while the monster\'s back was turned the monster has to spend a turn to spin around unless agility or magic alter this fact
-If other monsters join the fray at the same distance they will begin to circle the player, however only so many monsters can fit on each ring, 2 enormous giants would complete the inner most ring while 8-12 frogs of tiny stature would fit in the same ring, idealy the average monster size would fit 4 to the inner ring however the numbers listed are very loose suggestion
*The fight progresses and the monsters allie sees you he is a spell caster or an arrow shooter so he attacks from a greater distance, the distance is rather far, and this monsters skills arent so good so its spells are weaker and its aim isnt very good he doesnt do much damage or misses, because of the distance he is put on an outside ring
*The player starts realiseing he is in trouble so he starts spliting the turns to both run and fight, the circle moves with him and the melee monster is slower so he begins migrateing to the outer rings as everyone uses turns, the other monster is faster and begins moveing from circle to circle to stay kind of close, stop, cast a spell, catch up, and repeat
*The Player\'s good friend Bob and 3 of bobs friends see that Player is in danger, they are far off some of Bob\'s friends are magic users, and others are brawlers. The magic users tell Player to come twords them and the brawlers, Player does so and the magic users start to enter the circle system around player but realy far off the brawlers stay in the\'re normal First person mode because they havent actively engaged in combat yet
*Player gets closer and closer to the casters and they automaticly move from ring to ring. Before the brawlers can get close enough to fight with bob several invisable brawlers attack player and enter the circle surrounding player, Fortunately player has lots of health and armor but unfortunately alot of it has been knocked down, the brawlers finaly enter the second to last circle, but they are blocked from defending bob initialy by alot of monsters. they start attacking and enter the second circle several of Bob\'s brawlers take down monsters and begin to circle player.
*Player has taken alot of damage and Bob\'s brawlers finaly force a circle around player, either killing the monsters or pushing them to the second circle Player cant take much more then 3 or 4 hits before he is dead, so the Brawlers ellect to use some of the\'re turns to block the attacks against player and they begin to break down the hoard.
This is the basic System of my combat engine idea as I wrote it I realised prehaps the best thing to do is put the circle around the victem and not the agressor. this circle system would make it simple to put casters in a central safe spot around brawlers via putting them next to on the same ring, and infront of and behind on the 2 adjacent rings.
If 2 ring systems colide the players should be able to disband the combat ring they are in and join the new one, or turn based transfer to the other ring system, if all one monster or PC disband a ring fight, the monsters or fighters stay massed up in a ring and charge after.
Every player gets one or even a few turns per round unless afflicted by malice, durring that round it may take the entire round to do what they are doing while other players are going next and then doing the\'re thing, if the\'re stats allow them to have only one movement between rings per turn the game will move them between rings in animation and play for that round. if they are faster the animation and play is speeded up so they may preform another action like attack, it would look like they ran up and attacked the monster for that round, if they are realy fast they might be able to run up, attack the monster, and then run back to a safe distance
It would be important to slow down the injured, so that when they run they can be cought up to and killed
If your looking at a combat from the first person it will look exactly like what everyone is doing, if some one is moveing between rings on the\'re turn you will see them walking or running, if they are all doing it the game should not have to calculate everyones location as they move randomly, it should have a rather good idea of where they are moveing before they move so in this way movement prediction can be very simple. Hopefuly this can reduce lag as less information can be sent out and client side can predict more movements.
A Major diffuculty in this system would be time sinking everything for people who arent in the \"ring combat\" but watching from live action first person, this may or may not be a trivial task.
If I have left out a step some where or some one can point a flaw in it please submit a reply, if you like this system post feedback.
-Allie in Arms, The Doctor
