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Cyre · 08-26-2004, 08:01 AM

If you've ever played a console RPG like Breath of Fire or in a few instances some of the Final Fantasy games, you should be familiar with how this concept works and can be used to make for interesting combat scenarios.

Consider: You're fighting a dragon with four attackable parts, it's head, two front limbs, and its tail. If you attempt to attack the head, the limbs react and knock away the attack, lowering the damage significantly. So to counteract this, you attack the limbs first until they are out of commission. At the same time, however, you realize that the dragon's tail is magic, and changes the resistance of the rest of the body to whatever damage you last dealt to it. So if you cast ice magic on the dragon, the tail reacts and changes its resistance to ice magic. Now, you could cycle through other spells if you have them, but your ice magic might be your strongest, so instead you can attack the tail until it is no longer a factor, at which point you can use your strongest attack without worrying about it being negated by resistances.

This is a situation where it is beneficial to the player to be a smart basher. If they attack the head first, which is the only way to actually kill the dragon entirely, it is going to take them an extremely long time, and they'll be getting clawed, whipped by a tail, and lit on fire the entire time. But if they attack the tail first so they can use their strongest attack without worry of resistance change, then get rid of the limbs so they can't block, they'll have a much easier time of dispatching the dragon's head.

I don't know of many sound examples of this having been implemented in MUDs before, but that's why I've been working on them myself for some time. It isn't particularly difficult as long as you have code to allow for the progs of different mobs to coordinate with each other. The hardest part is getting them to act in unison in a consistent fashion, but providing you just double check all of your internal functions for the right message order and such, it can be accomplished with some very nice results.

08-26-2004, 08:01 AM	#11
Cyre New Member Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 20	If you've ever played a console RPG like Breath of Fire or in a few instances some of the Final Fantasy games, you should be familiar with how this concept works and can be used to make for interesting combat scenarios. Consider: You're fighting a dragon with four attackable parts, it's head, two front limbs, and its tail. If you attempt to attack the head, the limbs react and knock away the attack, lowering the damage significantly. So to counteract this, you attack the limbs first until they are out of commission. At the same time, however, you realize that the dragon's tail is magic, and changes the resistance of the rest of the body to whatever damage you last dealt to it. So if you cast ice magic on the dragon, the tail reacts and changes its resistance to ice magic. Now, you could cycle through other spells if you have them, but your ice magic might be your strongest, so instead you can attack the tail until it is no longer a factor, at which point you can use your strongest attack without worrying about it being negated by resistances. This is a situation where it is beneficial to the player to be a smart basher. If they attack the head first, which is the only way to actually kill the dragon entirely, it is going to take them an extremely long time, and they'll be getting clawed, whipped by a tail, and lit on fire the entire time. But if they attack the tail first so they can use their strongest attack without worry of resistance change, then get rid of the limbs so they can't block, they'll have a much easier time of dispatching the dragon's head. I don't know of many sound examples of this having been implemented in MUDs before, but that's why I've been working on them myself for some time. It isn't particularly difficult as long as you have code to allow for the progs of different mobs to coordinate with each other. The hardest part is getting them to act in unison in a consistent fashion, but providing you just double check all of your internal functions for the right message order and such, it can be accomplished with some very nice results.