Gameplay issue - 2 resources or just 1?balance?

Hello,

in my simple dungeon hack game the main character can attack with his sword, bow or magic. Each of those skills improves as the player uses them. Some monsters/opponents are more proficient in some skills than others.

Currently the player has two resources - health (as standard if it drops to zero player dies), and magic charge (used to power spells). Magic charge recharges over time or when the player drinks a magic potion, health only goes up when a healing potion is drunk.

It is possible for the player to concentrate wholly on magic spell casting and develop that ability to the point where they are untouchable by most enemies. I don't want this to happen. It is difficult looking for a way to balance the game so that neither 'only 1 skill is developed' or 'every skill must be developed equally' becomes an issue. I don't want one choice to dominate and equally I don't want the path to successfully playing the game to be developing each skill at the same rate.

In order to try and not make magic dominate I decided to drain the player's health slightly whenever a spell is cast (much like those old scrolling beat'em ups where the special move would be powerful but would damage your health).

However - if I do that is there any need for a magical charge (mana?) stat as the health can instead be used as a magical charge stat in some ways. Would make things simpler.

Any thoughts on the topic would be welcome.

Thanks,
Matt

Well, if a player is going to rely on magic, then lower their physical attributes accordingly over time. Swordfighting maintains/improves strength - lack of it reduces strength (and any other physical attribute)

Make some enemies immune to magic attacks - or even have enemies get stronger if magic is cast at them (ie they heal when some types of magic are cast at them.) This will force the player to balance magic and melee.

you should make Rouge ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_(computer_game) ) as remake as I used play that lots in old ATARI 65XE which was amazing at time.

I guess you making RPG game ...like if player kill one monster then he/she will have power up grade level 2 depending on how powerful the swords or weapons you have.

good luck with your game. :)

Make more powerful monsters neigh invulnerable to magic?

- Make some monsters invulnerable to magic
- Enable some opponents to steal (part of your) magic, leaving less for you to cast with
- Enable some opponents to (temporarily) remove any magical buffs
- Enable some opponents to (partially) reflect bad magic spells back to the caster

All of those mean that you can't ignore the non-magic side of your skillset very much, or you have no way of beating the opponents using any of the above.

A game like Warcraft 3 has several kinds of damage that can be inflicted: normal, piercing, siege, splash, magical, and possibly others. Different kind of weapons cause different kinds of damage, and various units are more resilient against some and weaker against others.

Some can protect well against piercing damage, but are very sensitive to magical. Others can reflect most magic but are vulnerable to brute force.

You could make a unit more vulnerable to rapid low-damage attacks but more resistant to slow, high-impact ones, etc.

Start differentiating the type of damage that the various weapons inflict, and balance out your opponents so you need more than a single strenght (like magic) to be able to beat them.

That said: the balancing can be really tricky, and in Warcraft 3's case the bulk of the game patches that have come out over time subtle re-balance the various dynamics so they average out better.

You Could Always add a secondary cost to the skills used
Where a cool down period is needed. Simple But somewhat limiting

My approach would be to add two new stats Body and Aura these fill when skills are used,the higher the skill the quicker it fills. The stats will return to zero at a set rate

Then from this you could use its value as a negative modifier for skill types used.

ie Turn 1 PowerAttack
Hit% (Acc - Body) = Acc
Cost 5 Body

ie Turn 2 PowerAttack
Hit% (Acc - Body) = Acc-5
Cost 5 Body

You could use this approach towards all stats for some interesting styles of play

Another Way could be to Set a limit to Body and Aura * Level
When a players Body,Aura exceed limit the attack type is unavailable until it has gone below limit or cause the players to passout.

This Kind of Limiting would encourage players to head more towards the 50/50 phy/magic build characters

Thanks for all the ideas. It is going to take some time to get it right, even if there is a single 'right' solution.