#I usually watch GMTK (Game Makers
spark hornet
I just really don't have a good idea of how to calibrate it, or what considerations there are to make when calibrating it. I'm setting the damage and HP values for my characters. I know that I don't want for a hit to do 100% damage, and obviously it shouldn't be 0%, but... how do I find the inbetween?
and I think it matters because, in a game where each hit does ~40% damage, 2-3 hits means death, so it creates a sense of suspense and tip-toeing, where you want to capitalize on every small opportunity you get
and that's a fundamentally different experience from a game of attrition, where each hit might do 2% damage, and so getting hit once or twice means very little in the longrun of the match
graceful heron
Your right, with a long TTK the fights are much longer and players have more time to engage with your combat mechanics, which can allow for strategies and combos, but a fight that lasts too long is hard to stay focused and strategy looses purpose - on the flip side, a short TTK means shorter fights and limited use of your combat system, but it allows for more impactful decisions and tactics - there may be other factors as well, such as if there is any way to restore health or breakpoints with health (such as equipment, buffs, etc that can increase your health or damage reduction), and rate of attack, such as a slow bolt-action sniper vs a fast automatic rifle, and the distance combat happens, of course with a sniper you can stay out of melee range, but it requires more precision to use as slight movements from you or the target can throw your shot off by a lot, while in mid or close range your easier to hit, but its also easier to hit others, as you need much larger and quicker movement to miss, elevation can play a role too, "having the high ground" is usually advantageous can you can look at a lower angle and see a target that cannot look high enough to hit you back without getting very far from your elevation
Also, how much does life matter in your game? If you respawn after 2 seconds, a death is inconsequential, if you only have 1 life or limited lives, or the environment can also do damage to you, then death matters more - ive noticed most games will use a baseline for combat, say 100 HP and the weakest weapon does 10 HP (10 hits) while the best does 50 HP (2 hits), everything else is balanced between these thresholds, so a "powerful gun" would do somewhere between 30 and 45 HP but never 50 since that would be on-par or exceed the "strongest" gun, if they wanted to allow this, then player HP would need to be 150, and so on
Ill give you an example with one of my games, its a 3v1 horror FPS, so the team with 3 have a short TTK but also have guns that can do moderately well from mid range, we want that team of 3 to fight in mid range, and we want them to know TTK shortens if they get into close range (since the other 1 player is melee, they have a slower attack rate but deal more damage) - the 1 player can kill a player on the team of 3 in about 8 hits, but the team of 3 have a way to restore 50% of their HP, and tank another 4 hits, we are still playing with numbers to find out what is a good balance with our 50 minute match times, ideally we want fights to end sooner than 50 minutes but we also dont want it to be over in the first 5 minutes, so some of those above factors are considerations for us to extend the TTK - it may also help to look at the difference of a game with a long TTK like Overwatch, and a game with a short TTK like Valorant, they both have ways characters can restore health in combat and weapons that are optimal at various ranges, but they also rely on "characters" having different abilities and ultimates to drastically shift TTK
spark hornet
there may be other factors as well, such as if there is any way to restore health or breakpoints with health
I am still trying to decide if I want the game's stages to have pickups, for example health... WIP 🙂 I suppose the pickups wouldn't make sense the quicker TTK becomes, so that's an interesting observation
how much does life matter?
I'm planning for each 1v1 round of gameplay to have ~5 lives, and I'm still deciding whether the game would operate on rounds (a la Street Fighter) or in one big round (a la Smash Bros)
Wow, 50 minute seems like quite a long gametime, no? I guess I'm not sure what the win conditions or the pace are, though
I can see that being interesting if the game has per-round progression and such
graceful heron
It is a long game time, but the time serves more of a way to remove anxiety, it used to be 15 minutes and we found through playtest it was too short, then we tried 30 minutes and players still felt like they were racing against the clock, so we shrunk the maps by about 40% and made the time 50 mins with a TTK that we hope plays around 20 ish mins (which ive noticed most FPS I play are around 10 to 20 mins even if they usually feel much faster than that) - the team of 3 is meant to move slowly and find the other 1 player, while the 1 player is meant to sneak up and ambush the team of 3, ideally one-by-one, so we want to allow lots of time for strategy - the game sort of has rounds, where the team of 3 will respawn in a cycle when the full team is killed, 3 times - and these are numbers we are still playing with, but so far our playtesters seem to like these numbers
Which also brings into question... How long do you want your games to be? How long should a player get through 5 lives? Should each life be quick and consequential? Should they have time to strategize each life?
spark hornet
Fighting game matches seem to average 5-10 minutes, so that's where my head is at
I like the idea of having a slightly lower TTK and more lives, and that's a trend that you see in Smash games. Smash64 is played with 5 lives, Melee is played with 4, and I think all of the newer games are played with 3.
And yeah, probably no time to strategize, because I want to keep the pace up, and I'm not interested in mechanics that require development throughout the duration of the match (at least, not in a really drawn-out fashion)
graceful heron
It seems like most games "magic numbers" tend to be 100 HP and 3 (usually lives, rounds, ability slots, etc) lol - I think for a 5 - 10 min experience, not having time to strategize is a good decision, and having lives go fast but having many can also make each life feel more fun and nonconsequential, fighting games also usually have fixed combat (in the sense that there are a few ways to attack and several combos from those few ways, and then map specific strategies like fighting at ledges or grabbing/throwing for environmental kills, etc)
Smash also features shields to midigate damage but they also dont have "HP" per-say, its more percent based since their combat system is more about "knock off the map" instead of "score a kill", so this could be a factor too, the higher percent the more of a ragdoll you become - however because of that "fixed" combat, experienced players could find 5 lives exceeds 10 minutes if they are both very good (youll likely want to do playtests with a focus group on those numbers) - so you could also introduce game modes where for example "competitive" is only 3 lives, or a way for players to adjust the life count between 1 and 5
spark hornet
Yeah I'm still also trying to wrap my head around that casual-competitive divide too, and how those different approache sto a game has bearing on the design decisions
graceful heron
So to summarize, incase others want to provide input, or maybe if it may help you describe a "elevator pitch" to other devs about your game, to my understanding (please correct me if im wrong or missed any details we discussed):
You have a 3D fighting game similar to Super Smash Bros/Street Fighter in mechanics, with a 5-life system, where each life is HP based (or more specifically, based on "number of hits") with gameplay ranging around 10 ish mins - and you are not sure if youll have damage or health breakpoints such as pickups or if it will be round-based or the exact balance of a casual vs competitive experience, which along with other factors, can affect how long TTK should be - from the sounds of it, you may be leaning toward the "shorter TTK" to better fit your fast paced multi-life gameplay?
spark hornet
haha well thank you for putting all of that work into that summary - yes, that sounds correct to me
Actually, ya know, I decided that I'll just throw the game up on some platform so that it's publicly accessible - I'm planning to share this in the /r/gamedev discord as well, because I am just itching for people to feel the prototype
@graceful heron here's a prototype on itch.io 🙂
Let me restate the stuff in that previous message to what feels the most true to my plan:
- 3D fighting game, and I'm drawing inspiration from Super Smash Bros, Battlerite, and loose ideas from other fighting games (though I haven't thoroughly played more traditional ones)
- 1v1 or 3v3, focusing on 1v1 for now: 5 lives, with death upon losing all hitpoints. fast-paced, in-your-face combat
- focusing on a competitive experience, though as a challenge of design, I wouldn't want for the game to feel inaccessible to a more casual player
The above was a good exercise for me, and I'll put this somewhere in my GDD
graceful heron
Np, thats what these discussions are for 😉 getting external feedback is also a good idea - although id suggest also including a short video of gameplay on your itch page or maybe a screenshot of what gameplay looks like before downloading, even if your art might be placeholders, it may help give an idea of what your prototyping
spark hornet
Hmm, okay, I'll record and throw up something brief!