acrimoneyius
Insider
I'm mildly concerned with how much skill/learning curve will be involved with your combat system once all is said and done. I hope there are small nuances involved in the control scheme that aren't necessary to win, but give you small advantages for 'trying' harder. I respect your project because of your uncompromising attitude for a new style of game; However, I do hope you draw inspiration from other games that did combat right.
A few of my favorite games I grew up with took the philosophy of "simple to learn, difficult to master" and employed it with great care. I can see Sui Generis has a similar philosophy. Here's a brief overview of some of the games:
1) Nox (developed by Westwood Studios) is a 2.5d game where every spell/ability is useful, powerful, and unique in its role. The combat is fun because of pace of movement, distinctive ability queue's, dynamic abilities with lots of utility, and skill/reaction-time based combat. Abilities could be used creatively when in conjunction with each other.
2) Infantry Online (originally by Harmless Games, bought out by SoE) was for the longest time, in my humble opinion, one of the funnest game engines with the least amount of fluff when it came to relevant weapon/ability modifiers. It had a combination of mechanics that no other game has been able to mimic even to this day: 100's of concurrent players in one arena, low latency fighting, very simple & clear graphics to prevent information overload (allows players to make informed tactical decisions more quickly) all while utilizing newtonian physics with 64-rotation points. Infantry was also one of the few games that could play entirely with a keyboard..allowing you to have up to 17 different weapon/abilities in an inventory at once.
Infantry also had a wonderful damage model where armor could have a combination of ignore & percentage protection in conjunction with suit energy. Suit energy was basically durability of your armor and how effective it was in that current state
Example:
1. Armor has 1 ignore and 50% damage protection AND you start with 100 energy max;
2. Weapon does 20 kinetic damage and 33 energy damage;
3. Weapon will do 20-1 X .5 = 9.5 damage if you're at 0 energy;
4. If you have full energy, weapon does no damage;
5. The first hit would bring you down to 90 energy;
6. Damage calculation would be 100%-90% = 10% of 9.5 = .95.
This gave meaning to consecutive shots and really allowed players to distinguish skill from one another. There were also multiple damage types. For a game like Sui Generis, you could have types of (Blunt, Piercing, Slashing) for melee. I'm not sure for magic.
I had the privilege of toying with concepts not generally seen in today's games with Infantry's game editors for many years. I even created certain things the developer's did not originally intend or understand about their game (largely due to the designer asking for specific variables from the programmer and not understanding their full potential in ways weapons could be designed). TL;DR I created a fantasy/medieval mod by manipulating/combining variables that were used simplistically in other mods in an engine designed for a sci-fi space-shooter.
In-Game playable guitar:
Spell system with 'telekinetic' manipulation:
3)I don't feel as comfortable describing other games in detail like Street Fighter, Starcraft: Broodwar, Infinity Engine RPG's (Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale), which had their own unique flare of interesting combat mechanics. Broodwar with it's unit interactions/combinations, Street Fighter with it's combo's and paper-rock-scissors like move set's, and Infinity Engine RPG's with one of the better automated tactical combat which allowed for an important pause feature.
A few of my favorite games I grew up with took the philosophy of "simple to learn, difficult to master" and employed it with great care. I can see Sui Generis has a similar philosophy. Here's a brief overview of some of the games:
1) Nox (developed by Westwood Studios) is a 2.5d game where every spell/ability is useful, powerful, and unique in its role. The combat is fun because of pace of movement, distinctive ability queue's, dynamic abilities with lots of utility, and skill/reaction-time based combat. Abilities could be used creatively when in conjunction with each other.
2) Infantry Online (originally by Harmless Games, bought out by SoE) was for the longest time, in my humble opinion, one of the funnest game engines with the least amount of fluff when it came to relevant weapon/ability modifiers. It had a combination of mechanics that no other game has been able to mimic even to this day: 100's of concurrent players in one arena, low latency fighting, very simple & clear graphics to prevent information overload (allows players to make informed tactical decisions more quickly) all while utilizing newtonian physics with 64-rotation points. Infantry was also one of the few games that could play entirely with a keyboard..allowing you to have up to 17 different weapon/abilities in an inventory at once.
Infantry also had a wonderful damage model where armor could have a combination of ignore & percentage protection in conjunction with suit energy. Suit energy was basically durability of your armor and how effective it was in that current state
Example:
1. Armor has 1 ignore and 50% damage protection AND you start with 100 energy max;
2. Weapon does 20 kinetic damage and 33 energy damage;
3. Weapon will do 20-1 X .5 = 9.5 damage if you're at 0 energy;
4. If you have full energy, weapon does no damage;
5. The first hit would bring you down to 90 energy;
6. Damage calculation would be 100%-90% = 10% of 9.5 = .95.
This gave meaning to consecutive shots and really allowed players to distinguish skill from one another. There were also multiple damage types. For a game like Sui Generis, you could have types of (Blunt, Piercing, Slashing) for melee. I'm not sure for magic.
I had the privilege of toying with concepts not generally seen in today's games with Infantry's game editors for many years. I even created certain things the developer's did not originally intend or understand about their game (largely due to the designer asking for specific variables from the programmer and not understanding their full potential in ways weapons could be designed). TL;DR I created a fantasy/medieval mod by manipulating/combining variables that were used simplistically in other mods in an engine designed for a sci-fi space-shooter.
In-Game playable guitar:
3)I don't feel as comfortable describing other games in detail like Street Fighter, Starcraft: Broodwar, Infinity Engine RPG's (Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale), which had their own unique flare of interesting combat mechanics. Broodwar with it's unit interactions/combinations, Street Fighter with it's combo's and paper-rock-scissors like move set's, and Infinity Engine RPG's with one of the better automated tactical combat which allowed for an important pause feature.
