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i'm going to outline a system that graal could use as a way to make it seem more like an arcade game. the best way to describe it in one sentence is graal mixed with street fighter-style special attacks
the main function of the system was to give controllers a second thought for graal. not many people tend to use controllers on graal, and i personally dislike using a controller for sparring, so i thought about ways i could improve upon graal's default game play in such a way as to make it fun using a controller
i tried to think of something that would make it easy to bring about the special moves, but make it hard to implement them into a fighting style. my first thought was that you hold down a button (say the slash button) and then input some motions on the controller, and upon release the character would perform the special attack. my second thought was having a prerequisite of special attacks that you could assign to different buttons, so you could hotkey certain attacks to certain buttons, allowing you to combine special attacks to create your own technique. a third idea was to use a super smash bros. type control of a button + direction to pull out a special move, the direction you input first being for the attack, followed by the direction you want the attack to go. the trouble with defining a certain way to pull out special attacks is that graal has movement, direction of the player, and distance to the player. so to pull off a special attack, you have to be within radius to hit the player, be facing the right direction to hit the player while adding in lag and faulty hit detection, plus have the time to actually input the special move before you get hit with a normal attack, or the player blocks it. i want it to flow nicely, or it probably won't be fun
special moves are based upon the original technique learned by the player. for example, if the player chooses a technique that makes the player dash forward to pierce his opponent, then the special move could be a longer distance piercing strike that sets the player's sword on fire, causing more damage. another could be a technique that allows the player to do a sword-strike, where the sword seems to extend outward in a straight line. the special move could be the same thing, but more powerful and with different patterns of lines, or maybe a larger distance line. whatever the original move, the special will be that + more damage and more range of usability
you can learn techniques and special moves from specific NPCs that you can encounter during the server, as it will be setup by the storyline. one of the goals i wanted to present in this idea was the option to do some quests and not do others. if you aren't going to be using a certain technique, then why would you go through the quest to attain it? by picking and choosing which quests you want to do, and in what order you want to do them, players can really specialize their time into learning a specific technique that is fun for them. of course, doing some quests and not others may mean you miss out on other quests that come about in doing a quest. another function of questing i wanted to implement were quest's appearing during the middle of another quest. i think it creates great flow for the storyline if you pick up one quest where another ends, or maybe even multiple quests during the course of one quest. that way it'll seem like you have more to do, and that your actions create more opportunity for the player to get more loot, and more techniques, and more adventure. once you get to these specific NPCs, and you meet the requirements for learning what that NPC has to offer (like if you are trying to learn the 3rd tier for a move you don't even have the basic technique for...) then you can learn it by repeating, in zelda style, what the NPC shows you. once you learn it, the character will have it forever in it's collection of techniques - it just has to be inputted so it can bust it out
the story for the server would be the typical kid who wishes to become a great warrior. the player will pick a certain area town to grow up in, as the player will start out as a child. growing up, the player's mother teaches him how to use a sword (getting his first technique of the many to come) and he enters his first tournament against the will of the player right afterwords. depending on the region the player chooses, he will get one of several basic techniques that lead into ever more powerful special moves. after the player either wins or loses the first round of the tournament, the town will be attack by some form of baddie (because having your home town attacked is more than enough reason to go out questing to become a better warrior, especially when it was your dream) which the player can hardly defeat with only the most basic of sword techniques. you can either hide or be beaten by the baddies, but regardless the player will be saved by a traveling NPC-warrior whom is a legend across the entire world. after being saved, the warrior hands you a map which has several locations marked on it - the warrior will tell you that those are the places he purposely traveled too, and that if the player desires to become stronger so he could have protected his town (they all die by the way, the warrior comes to late and only saves the player) then he should travel his map, and experience the same experiences. this will lead the player off on quests to learn and perfect new techniques so he can acquire new special moves
the first quest will be directly outside of town, and all it requires the player to do is to talk to an old man-NPC. the old man will explain how techniques work, and how to master special moves; then he will teach you your first special moves, which is based off your first technique. in addition the old man can inform the player into more of the inner story to the world, which i won't get into. then the player can begin to choose where they want to go
details would have to be filled out to make this sort of system happen, and knowing graal's hit detection, it might screw with the scripting of such a system as to make it ineffective. it would make graal more interesting to new players, who see it as running around slashing things. instead, it would be slashing things, and then in addition blocking a special attack with 5 HP left, moving around the opponent dodging a normal attack and then performing a tier 3 special move from behind making it unblockable, which takes away 50/100 HP, followed by a normal attack and a ranged-special attack that just happens to go through two people, resulting in a double kill. it would make things way more interesting, especially when a combination of special moves which can be designed to flow off one another. as long as we get the variables right for HP and damage per hit, and the system flows well, i think it'd be fun. it'd make sparring way more interesting anyways |
07-01-2009, 04:50 AM
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