I personally think you should have an “inventory” like a spot to hold one weapon. But SPECIFICALLY ONE more weapon to incentivise switching. Also if you have two really cool weapons you want to keep, then you have a slot to have it! Understandable if you don’t want to do this.
Maybe make a boss use an attack that spawns weapons for the player to use. Maybe the boss makes spears rain down from the sky or something? Seems like a really neat idea to me!
Valve tried to force players in l4d2 to swap weapons more often by reducing the maximum reserve ammo you have, but it really doesn't matter because regardless ammo is still abundant enough to never warrant swapping weapons. And running out of ammo on a primary weapon isn't really a big deal if you use the super OP melee weapns
Edit after watching whole vid: your current system of limited time bonus is rly good. You dont get punished for keeping it, but you get a slight bonus for switching to new one 👌
i wonder if you can charge a weapon _up_ instead of _down,_ and when it's fully charged you have to throw it for a "shatter" effect that does increased damage, maybe even a special per-weapon effect. i honestly hate the "weapon break" damage mechanic in games, so that might be a way to further invert the negative incentive of using a weapon.
Instead of weapon charge, call it weapon sharpness/bluntness. When its at its maximum sharpness it deals most damage and then blunts over time to a minimum of it being just a slab of metal that does the least damage. PS: the boss' eye glowing in the dark is a really nice touch
It may work, but may be a bit odd, given that a lot of weapons aren't sharp, like having a torch "sharpness/bluntness" seems weird, but maybe it's fine.
The trouble with the charge system is that it is all negatives still. Players will be hesistant to use something because they'll want to save it for a boss so, like in BotW, the best way to play is to NOT attack enemies unless you have to. You've now pushed players into a situation where they'll spend their time dodging enemies and resent instances when they're forced into a fight where they're not rewarded with fully charged weapons to replace the ones you've made them use. This also creates balancing issues whereby you don't know if a player is using a fully charged weapon or not. One may say, "well its only a small amount of bonus damage" but to that I'd say "Well then why add a feature that is so trivial in the first place?"
I have always thought that breaking weapons could give a certain resource that could repair your other better weapons, still encouraging using other weapons while still allowing your favorites to not be gone forever
This sounds like an excellent idea! Would require an inventory of some sort, to carry more weapons. I think with a very limited weapon inventory, this could work well. Allows the player to use and keep that awesome weapon they like, and encourages the player in a positive way to use AND throw other weapons. Perhaps the throw damage could also be tied to the charge of the weapons, lower charge = more damage.
You could also add the ability to recharge/repair weapons. Maybe have a repair kiosk or a repair spell. Maybe have it cost some money. This way, if a player has a weapon they really like, they could hold onto it and occasionally recharge it.
well, yea but that completely ruins the purpose of having weapon energy/ durability which is to throw the weapon and find a new one when it runs out of energy
@@ag1015 It doesn't ruin anything. It adds another dimension to it. You can toss your weapon and find a new one or you can manage your money and look for a blacksmith. The game could even be designed to require a fully charged weapon to defeat higher level bosses. This adds to the strategy. You know you'll need to prepare your weapons before battle. There could potentially even be weapon enhancements you could buy from the blacksmith in later levels.
The Eye boss lacks AOE attacks and laser attacks. Give it the ability to summon minions which attacks you and heals the boss so players are forced to deal with them quickly thus adding tension to the fight also adding traps in the arena that damage both player and boss will make things a lot more interesting
Maybe flip it around? Instead of you losing durability, you start with the bar empty and fill it up with each attack. It still deals less damage when full, but instead of treating it as "It's broke, throw the trash away" you make it feel like "You have charged it up! Throw it for a bonus!"
I think giving an incentive to use different weapons is great. A friend of mine loves Doom Eternal, and I'm pretty sure in that game you don't have a pistol with infinite ammo. What if you gave each weapon a "breaking effect"? Like when the lightning rod "breaks", it can do 1 final attack where it creates a thunderstorm area that deals damage every second for a few seconds? Love your stuff, keep going my guy❤
Maybe adding a system where you can turn certain weapons you pickup into a permanent weapon might be cool. Some people might like certain weapons more than the standard sword and being able to permanently replace it might be cool.
The bar can be referred to players as “Weapon Prime” as you can inform players that using the weapon will cause it to dull or blunt down. Also some ideas you add: -Spear/Lance Weapons deal more throwing damage -Spear/Lance/Axe weapons have more throwing distance -The camera slightly zooms out more when aiming a weapon throw -Shops carry weapons that have increased durability -Visiting a blacksmith or using an anvil to slightly restore weapon Prime hope this helps and your game is looking great
I definitely think it’s a good system for weapons, also a unique one that will help your game to stand apart. However I also feel like having just one weapon isn’t a bad thing. Games like Hollow knight and Deaths door both made excellent use of their single weapon while mixing in spells and bows to somewhat vary gameplay, but having that one weapon doesn’t hurt a game it’s just how you implant it along with the enemy gameplay.
Hi! I was very impressed with your game, and I was wondering how you implemented this behavior of bullets in your game? And could you tell me in which direction to move in order to achieve a similar result? (Translation may contain errors)
I þink a “charge” system could work? It’s long shot but maybe using a weapon (in relatively short range) can build up a charge þat, when full: -gives extra damage when þrown -maybe an extra effect when þrown (like multishot or exploding on impact) -But you can overcharge & it empties & þen it recharges half as fast? I þink it could work given human’s preferences to number go up but I’m no expert
The point of breaking weapons is to incentivize the use of multiple different weapons. In this, they are outclassed; I have learned from trading card games that players simply want to use what they have, and just saying No is almost always a bad idea. What you need to do is somehow make the use of multiple different weapons optimal. Maybe some sort of Debuff/Buff Alchemy, with certain enemies being immune to certain debuffs?
One way you could encourage players to be more reckless with weapons(instead of just saving them) and encourage variety without negative rewards, would be to implement some way to regenerate, summon, or recall weapons. Imagine a magic skill that spawns a random weapon to be equipped(on a cooldown), or perhaps a specific one, weapons that you can throw and have them come back to you, or an upgrade that lets you pick up a bunch of the pieces of the environment at once to throw(think multiple rocks on the screen, activate the spell, and then all those rocks are magnetized to you and rotate around you mario kart turtle shell style). You could also do some types of projectiles(throwing stars, knives, bombs?) that have amounts you can purchase or pick-up, sort of like arrows in many games. With that type of system, you could encourage players to use them a lot in certain areas, and then switch things up in other areas. Another option could be a way to make it so once you've "discovered" a weapon, you've never truly lost it after durability is gone. Maybe once you unlock a weapon, you can use currency or charge of some type to summon, purchase, or craft them again. A silly option you could try, is having a "magic bag" type thing with endless room. Think of a portal that you can throw tons of random objects into(I think literally throwing them into it would be fun), and then later on you can have it spit them out at random. Maybe you have upgrades that let you change how many it spits out at a time, or how many it can store. I just think the idea of being in a boss battle, and using a skill to spit out a bunch of weapons seems really funny to me. I'm sure you could expand this idea into many different ways. Maybe you throw a torch into it, and then you can summon fire from the portal for a little bit, or perhaps until you throw something else in. Would be a good way to encourage people to get rid of their weapons in the search of new things that the portal does.
Weapons that break is a really bad gimmick to force people to us new weapons. IMO the recent Zelda games aren't actually fun and are only fun due to popularity/nostalgia. Weapons breaking often is just plain irritating and un-immerssive by forcing you into a menu to swap. The weapon recharge mechanic is a fantastic spin on this. Just avoid the menu cycling issue!
personally, I hate it when weapons break. like.. crow bars in zombie games. crow bars last for years of abuse, but they break if you hit a squishy zombie 5 times with it? weapons shouldn't break unless abused. hitting a rock monster with a wizard staff? that might break it. hitting a rock monster with a sword? that'll definitely dull it. hitting a rock monster with a pick axe? you should be good for years. in DnD, skeletons take more damage from blunt weapons than stabbing or slashing weapons. If your sword gets dull, it does less damage. same with a spear point. a cudgel won't really deteriorate that much though, but perhaps doesn't do as much damage against certain types of creatures. sharpening stones can fix your dull weapons and get them battle ready again. for boss fights.. environmental attacks might be the way to go.. just like your fire torches, if there are boulders you can push down on the creature, temple pillars you can collapse onto it, spiked traps, triplines, something that changes the boss's state which then allows you to make some sort of attack.. like throwing oil on it from a barrel, allowing you to then set fire to it, after which it is stunned, and then you can run in and smash it until it gets up... or maybe when it's down, you attach a chain to one of its legs and after 4 of those hold its arms and legs, the fifth chain goes around its neck and its captured. lots of possibilities. just think, "what can we do where I'm not just whacking it"... what can you place in the area to use against it? exploding barrels? tentacle creature in the lake? oil lamps to make the ground slick, or to oil it up to catch fire..
It would be cool to have like enchantments or something (name doesnt really matter) where you could empower your base sword with a certain weapon by sacrificing it. It would be a weaker version, like your sword sometimes shoots lightning bolts or has a chance to light things on fire from sacrificing the torch, maybe sometimes you have a heavy attack if you sacrifice a greatsword/axe, the sword becomes bigger if you sacrifice a spear, stuff like that. But it would last for longer so you could decide if you want the short term power from just the weapon or a longer buff thats weaker.
i think a more unique thing you could do is have the weapon charge up upon each attack. once its fully charged you can then do a powerful throw attack. maybe like imbuing the weapon with your magic power and it becomes unstable?
i have an idea where whenever you got a new weapon you can craft it for free in a certain machine only found on checkpoints/house (since this is my first video i watch from the channel) and after boss fights (you can't remake the weapon mid-fights) also you need to only have limited amount of weapons in inventory.
The tradeoff here is that if you have a special weapon you like, you might be less inclined to fight enemies. I'm not sure what direction you're taking with the spells, but maybe having a greater focus on these and making spells not have durability but rather be limited by a mana bar, you'd have to utilize both. Similar to the BioShock series.
Maybe instead of a throw you can make the weapons do a certain skill if it's been used past like 80%, like a super skill to make it satisfying to get rid of your weapon :D
You could could try to incentivise "Throwing away" the weapon, not by throwing it, but by triggering a special ability that results in the weapon breaking? IE the magic rod could shoot a bigger ball, or laser, but after that the rod shatters. The axe could be a whirlwind attack, the sword a flurry of strikes, and the spear a large piercing ranged attack. Rather than draining a durability bar, the players could build a special attack bar. That way the player will feel like they are building to a big attack, rather than draining what little durability the weapon has left.
One more thought: This mechanic could play nicely together with the slot system some people were suggesting. After charging up a weapon, you could store it in a slot instead of immediately throwing it away, and then pick a new weapon to charge. Allowing players to unlock more slots as they progress could lead to some juicy mega combo attacks on bosses as the player unloads 5 fully charged special attacks on them
I think you should change your approach to making players want to engage with more of your sandbox so that theres more variety in the gameplay. Arbitrary weapon durability, like in TOTK, is one of the things people dislike the most about the game, being forced to use something different than what you enjoy because the game decides so isn't a necessarily fun mechanic. Your solution, while preferable, would probably cause people to get frustrated, as the weapon theyve enjoyed using now isnt viable and they have to use something they might not enjoy, which isn't a fun experience. If you feel like people wont want to engage with your sandbox over their default weapons, try and find a way that would incentivise them to do so, look at the weapons you're adding and think "how can I make the player want to use this weapon" wether thats by having different encounters take more damage from different weapons or add complexity to the weapon that would draw the player to it. At the end of the day, no matter how much you might enjoy your additions, players will gravitate towards certain options they deem the most enjoyable and viable. You should try and increase the options the player will want to pick, as oppose to force options onto the player.
Bear with me for a minute. World of Warcraft used to do something similar; after playing the game for too long you would become "Restless" reducing your XP gained from all sources, many players did not like this because they felt it penalized them for playing the game - and I think that is a big factor in mechanics, 'fun' needs to be a core consideration, and a mechanic that punishes your players will always be an obstacle to that 'fun'. Instead, what they chose to do was simple, they changed "restless" to be the game's base state, and instead, logging on after some time offline or in a safe zone, gave you a "rested" buff which increased your XP gained. Instead of a system that 'breaks' weapons, I would posit some form of "charge" meter, that fills as you damage enemies, culminating in an empowered attack that breaks your weapon - or something to that effect. Reward your players, make them want to throw away their weapon, not because they have to, but because they want to.
Also, some kind of choice would lead to an interesting gameplay loop, if you had a choice of what to do with your weapons, whether it be discarding it, using it until it breaks or some third option (like combining it with a new weapon you pick up - whether that would increase the durability of one weapon by sacrificing the other, or some other dynamic effect where each weapon would give a buff when consumed) I'd just like to say it's always really cool to see a novel approach to games like this, I hope if nothing else, you find inspiration in these comments, good luck :)
U should check out Bloodroots gameplay. For retaining certain weapons, they'll get that weapon's scrap after breaking. Like when a fire rod breaks, they'll get fire rod scrap then they can go to a shop and use the fire rod scrap to build the fire rod again
You can incentivize it by making it so the more weapons they throw, either unlocks some buff or grants even more gold. If you have this permanent system in place you will ALWAYS want to throw it because it gives you a mechanic with progress you can work towards.
That’s a really clever way of having the player use new weapons! Instead of having the weapon break entirely, just have it degrade and become less powerful. The player wouldn’t feel as hurt having a weapon lose potency compared to having a weapon destroyed.
I think that the system is good since you have an unbreakable sword that yiu can use if you don't want to waste stuff. But i think there should be a way to swap to the sword without trowing it away, like if you found something cool that you want to use for stronger ennemmies or a boss you can still use your sword for weaker ennemies. Obviously i think that there should only be one slot gor the destructible weapon so you don't hoard them.
I think one way of incentive to change weapons is making some enemies weaker to a specific weapon, for example a slime might be really resistant to sword hits but would receive lot of damage when hit with a spear
Very nice balance! It reminds me of Wind Waker where you can pick up enemy weapons and chuck them back at them, except now the break. I think calling it something along the lines of "sharpness" would be fitting. I know it doesn't make sense for a wooden staff to be sharp but Monster Hunter has you sharpening your hammers so I think it would work here too.
I think a lot of it depends on what you want with your game. but whatever you do go all in. if you just go for a normal combat system just make it super freaking good and if you use the charge/weapon system make that the hook of you game. use the weapons for everything, puzzels, bosses, NPCs, platforming. have it feel like the core piece of your game.
Gotta say, I didn't play totk but I absolutely hate weapon durability in botw. Despite being a great game, I think it was the wrong design choice and it would be better if it was totally eliminated and replaced with nothing. At least make it like many RPGs that came before it, give weapons sharpness that reduces their damage the more you use them and allow you to repair them. Durability is annoying enough to me that it is the thing that makes me stop playing botw when it happens in the middle of fights where I was having fun. The mechanic in the first place just makes combat less fun and feels bad. The rest of the stuff around it is like an apology to the player for making them mad. It's trying to band-aid a problem that you caused on purpose. But it still doesn't accomplish fixing the fun because it still feels bad and annoying when your weapons break, or even when they just run out of power like the master sword and become useless. I think indie devs very often look to great games for ideas, and think since the game is good all the mechanics in the game must also be good, which just isn't the case. Some games are good despite certain mechanics, not because of them. There are other ways to make weapons temporary. Personally I like systems where weapons are consumables and you can use duplicates to upgrade the ones you already have, or just that you can sell extras for money that you can use for other things. Having them break when you throw them is good too, but I think that usually just means people will never throw them because there isn't a huge advantage to it vs using up the weapon normally. You could have relics that power up weapons, but only weapons of a certain type. Then people will see a great rune for spears, but if they currently have a greatsword, they'll want to find a spear to use with it. Another good way to encourage variety is have them be randomly different somehow, like you can find a lv3 greatsword but if you currently have a lv1 spear, you'll want to switch to the greatsword. Since it's a rougelike and not an adventure like zelda, you'll find ones with different levels or attributes each time, and that alone will encourage people to switch. Once you have the level 3 spear during a run, you want to use it for the rest of the run. And that's fine and good. But I also think people don't really need an incentive to use different weapons if they're all balanced, it's fun enough to try the different ones if you get bored of the same one. Especially in a rouglelike where you lose all your stuff each run anyway. And if you never get bored of the same one, it's a non issue and I think it's best to just let the player use whatever weapon they want. They will have more fun that way. I don't want to be harsh, but if melee weapons break or run out of juice in the final version of your game, I'm not going to play it and I probably would have otherwise. But it's your game and if you have more fun with that mechanic in it, then go for it. Maybe other people will like it and it's just me.
First time seeing your channel but my suggestion would be a weapon endurance system. Basically every weapon has an endurance like you have shown, these weapons when they are used lose endurance like you shown with your system. However, when your not using the weapon, it gains a little bit of endurance back every few seconds or so, faster when not in combat because why wait outside of combat. This would players to choice to keep there current weapons without being punished for over using it. I would also suggest that if a player does run out of endurance, the weapon recharge rate isn't hindered but its actually increased slightly, though add a required endurance limit for the weapon to be back at its maximum damage. at this point during this stage throwing the weapon should also do more damage then throwing the weapon normally, maybe even more coins with it. If you had an inventory and a ton of weapons, maybe then you could fully prevent a player from using a weapon but from what I can see something like about should be simple enough for players to get, as long as you have the sounds, particial effects and colours right. Also, take a sub!
Another option instead of discharging the weapon could be charging it. Deals normal damage when picked up, attack enemies to charge it, once charged can be thrown with some extra damage. It doesn’t break after being thrown, you can pick it up again but it won’t charge this time and throwing it again will break it.
One way i'm experimenting with this problem of "hit and dodge only" is to have a "build up" system on most of the skills. So most skills build up momentum in some way, buffs, debuffs, stacks, synergies, etc. So the player can capitalize on it and force himself to just keep hitting as much as possible or turn it around and try to build defense momentum and go into a more passive mode. The main goal is to give the player as much agency as possible and not just be subject to the rhythm of the pre-designed pattern of boss attacks. There's a indie Turn based RPG that did something similar and it's really fun when you play it, while being an incredibly simple system. They had a "heat bar" that builds up as you use skills and changes the output of the skills if it crosses 2 fixed thresholds of heat.
You could do a weapon quality tier system,like; pristine, good, dull, damaged and after an X amount of hits it drops to the lower tier which has worse stats like less damage. You can repair the weapon to bring it up a tier. I don't think they should completely break but the damaged tier would suck.
Try what I'm doing with my game, make them have different power levels, so it keeps the "player has a choice" aspect without the negativity of he breaking weapon, example: you find a sword with 10 power, later down the line, you find one with 30, do you switch or not is your choice
just a quick thought about the lightning boss, you could have the lightning staff's be around the arena, but if the player is holding them they get struck with lightning, you could further reinforce the idea by having all of the staff's be hit by lightning in the arena so the player sees this and knows that they should pick up the staff right after a lightning attack, but also so they know that they have limited time and have to make the most of it on top of the durability!
Maybe with your “charge” system, to incentivize using up your weapon and wanting to change, make the weapons deal more damage or have special effects when thrown at 0 charge, or maybe even switch it up and make the system work by charging up your weapon to eventually use it up for a big “charged throw” attack?
Hi there ! I'm new to your dev logs, and I wanted to know if there was weapons upgrades implemented in your game. You could upgrade your weapon for more damage, but losing some distance advantage or something. Like if you carry a great sword, it could be upgrade for a smaller one with some attack speed increase, or be larger but slower and having more damages. It could change the way you play !
unless the dulled version of a weapon is always worse than the sword, I think I wouldn't throw it at all without a new, definitively better one comfortably nearby also, this system could potentially feel cumbersome if players feel the need to regularly backtrack to pick up weapons after throwing theirs, though that could probably be mitigated if weapons of ascending strength are founder the further you travel that said, haven't played it! maybe I'll check it out when I have the time
Something in my dream game that I wanted to share was bluntness. Instead of weapons breaks like BotW or Minecraft, over time, a bar goes down and for every 25% it goes down, you deal a little less damage. These can be sharpened at sharpening stations or with certain abilities. Feel free to use this! Edit: And for that name for that charge, what about simply "Charge-up"? It's really simple, but I think it has a nice ring to it. But, hey, it's your game.
Respecftully, I am heavily against weapon durability. With all games adding it nowadays, I'm sick of it. I never felt like it added a whole lot, and IMO it's really annoying to deal with. In my opinion, the need to force the players to use different weapons shouldn't be needed if the weapons themselves are interesting. In my opinion, the game should be fun without durability, otherwise the durability is just a crutch (in a sense) to force engagement. Here are a few of my biggest gripes when it comes to weapon durability (Most of my examples will be coming from Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom): -I actually feel like it makes exploring worse. For example in BOTW/TOTK, Why go out of your way to look for a chest, when all it contains is a weapon that is no different from the many others I already have or found in the past? It really dilutes the experience for me. Finding a weapon in Elden ring/Dark Souls feels special, because even if I never use it, it's always *completely* unique, and one-of-a-kind. You don't get that kind of novelty with durability. -Conservation strategy is often too simple to justify it for me. Use ice weapons vs fire enemies, for instance. I can't really think of any other scenario which would justify swapping a specific weapon. Everything else just varies in damage. In BOTW/TOTK Shields are literally identical from each other in function unless you're parrying with them, and parrying causes you to avoid durability loss, so I don't really understand the need. -Enemy variety suffers. At least in BOTW/TOTK, because weapons would break all the time, every enemy had to be a humanoid monster that could hold weapons for link to pick up after they are defeated. TOTK is slighty better in this regard, but not by a whole lot. -Sometimes I just want to use a weapon for a while because it looks nice. Can't do this if it breaks in a few minutes. -And here is the biggest one, I hate being pressured to avoid a fight because of durability. Man a lot of times I want to jump into a group of low tier enemies and slash away without being punished for it.
I like the idea of using the different weapons, and I think you've perfectly created incentives to use them. My only request would be that you could make any weapon your "main" weapon and perhaps upgrade it. This way you're always getting a benefit by grabbing random weapons you see, but you can see make any weapon a "main" that you keep forever and upgrade as much as the game allows. As for the bosses, although I think it's great to have bosses that have their own "gimmick," I think a boss being just mano-a-mano, you with your present equipment versus the boss with its own equipment, is a good idea too, from a storytelling perspective. Sometimes you just want to feel like a badass going up against another badass, and there's nothing external in the way. In some games, you use the environment to fight the enemy because it works for the CHARACTER, who would be unable to normally defeat a powerful opponent; but in this game you're obviously becoming a warrior, so not every boss, perhaps, would require trickery. Then again, I can see that you could easily fight either of these bosses without the external objects, so as long as the option is there, at least in some fights, to go it without assistance, then I think I'd be happy.
I don't think the weapon charge system is a positive incentive to switch weapons. instead of annoyed the weapon broke, you're annoyed the weapon is not doing its maximum damage. Maybe make it so weapons that break power up your next few attacks, or have weapons charge a final super attack that also breaks the weapon, so players want that to happen, instead of dreading that moment
How about the thrown bonus damage scales with the durability left on the weapon? Or not even that, just that if the weapon has durability on it it does something extra? That way people would be incentivized to throw the weapon before it has lost of it's charge giving them some extra incentive to do so
I'm thinking about starting a project using Löve2D instead of other famous engines, like Godot. With all this development time, what are you thinking about Löve2D?
I personally love the system you came up with as well as someone's proposed idea of referring to it as "sharpness/bluntness". Until hearing your idea though, I was thinking that having a repair system where if you use money/resources, it increases in cost for each repair, but that system works better for weapons with a unique identity, like named Uniques from Diablo. Also, if weapons have different rarities, weapons of higher rarity can get more repairs. For example, commons get 1 repair, uncommons get 2 repairs, rares get 3, etc. PS - Just found your videos and I'm really enjoying seeing gameplay of this so far and I hope it is a great success by your standards!
I personally love the system you cane up with as well as someone's proposed idea of referring to it as "sharpness/bluntness". Until hearing your idea though, I was thinking that having a repair system where if you use money/resources, it increases in cost for each repair, but that system works better for weapons with a unique identity, like named Uniques from Diablo. Also, if weapons have different rarities, weapons of higher rarity can get more repairs. For example, commons get 1 repair, uncommons get 2 repairs, rares get 3, etc. PS - Just found your videos and I'm really enjoying seeing gameplay of this so far and I hope it is a great success by your standards!
So about your weapon charge system; Currently it has a negative consquence (reduced damage) to nudge players into changing weapons-which I think is fine and well. What if there were a positive aspect to it as well? Maybe the throw could have some additional splash damage could be increased the more the weapon was previously used. That way, the narrative of the system won't be 'I'm being punished for using weapons I like' (which is what a lot of players took away from BOTW/TOTK's systems), but something more akin to 'if I use this weapon a lot, I'll be rewarded with a satisfying finisher'. EDIT: I also think that you could do a lot with this throw finisher in terms of synergy. I imagine some weapons like the lightning rod could inflict special status afflictions when thrown, that would in turn synergize well with other weapons (throwing a torch could set the enemies on fire, inflicting a burn effect, that would lead to increased damage for a weapon like a wind sword or a broom)
What makes totk and botw durability frustrating for some players is that there’s no fall back weapon so there’s a lot of punishment for being careless as there’s the possibility you can be left literally empty handed. I love the durability system in those games as you can use every enemy’s weapon but you’re still sometimes worried about ending up with no weapon so it slows you down. Fall back weapon incentivizes experimentation and fun because you don’t have punishing consequences, instead you fall back to familiarity which for some players can be comforting.
I'd opt for a middleground. My favorite game ever, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, has weapons that degrade, and when they "break" and reach zero durability, you can no longer wield them, but if you go to a blacksmith - or have armorer's hammers - you can repair it to use it again. That allows you to have the mechanic of degradable weapons, while also allowing for players to return to weapons they really like.
you could at least put a limit on the dodging like connecting it with the stamina, other part you could improve more is boss fight, is good and all that they are easy to fight, is more importantly to make boss hard too, player should at least have some hard time in the games, is like a challenge for them to fight... As well this is my thought you should put a mode on the EYE boss that will turn everything dark, and you can't see it until his eye opens up in the dark, and you can throw your weapon or something to his direction on the eye... in term I feel like that could give the players more use of the throwing item choice then just attacking it or kiting it, take this as a example on using your throwing mechanic in game. As well you could improve something on the lighting girl boss fight, like making a giant attack the whole entire island, that you must dodge at the right time to avoid it... As well importantly add inventory. The reason is switching weapons, as well throwing your weapon... As well Please put more boss more focused on some dodging, as well throwing too, you can't just focus on only slashing, it would be very dull then...Players want is Excitement, challenges, as well having fun!!! as well please, make things balance to other weapons. Don't make a weapon that can be so powerful, is more better if weapon just kept the same attack, so player's can't just one punch alot monster and bosses, it would be very boring for other people... As one said "The weapon is not the weapon, is the Weider himself or herself." P.S Remember to add something hidden for player's to enjoy, and have fun at... Good Luck ON YOUR GAME!!! 😁
Hi, just my 2 cents for an idea. Also enjoyed the video and look of your game! Like others have said, you can call it 'Weapon sharpness'. The idea of an inventory and stashing an extra weapon could work but it might take away from how you want to design the game/combat. I propose a way of re sharping weapons. Specifically your sword by sheathing it. The catch though is that your little dude can't sheath and draw his sword without first holding a different weapon. Maybe some lore about your dude being cursed or the sword sentient and jealous until you physical "cast" (throw) your other weapon away. Hopefully that'd encourage people to seek out, try and throw weapons as it gives your sword bonus damage back. Down the line you can add skills that change the bonus damage to elemental or simply add it. Maybe a skill that powers your held weapon when your sword is sheathed or heals you when drawing your sword. Also maybe skills that change your main weapon (sword) to different weapons so each run can be a little different, dunno if you are making a roguelike or not though. :) Hopefully these ideas help get your brain chugging again to find something you like!
I think your version of the weapons are just temporary upgrades/buffs like in an arcade game, they're disposable, you want to grab them because they up your damage, you don't have enough time with them to feel ownership over them, so you don't feel like you lose them when they expire either. I would make them have a timer on top of this bar, this makes them even more volatile and your expectations on them are, well temporary. You could make items that "dispense" these weapons to clear certain area's you want them to have "permanent weapon upgrades" for. and people wont be able to take them to zones too far away because... they expire. Their power should be way flashier though if you do this. Like crazy magical swords that have an aoe star-emitting-spin or something idk.. Just my 2 cents and immediate thought when i saw this ..
What about instead of weapons even have durability making them match play styles? Like for example the durability system in a game called (tails of iron). The weapons don’t loose durability but they’re adjusted based mostly on play style, the weapons could be two handed or one handed (which determine if you can use two weapons at the same time or not )makes you slower / takes more stamina, etc. and player would find better version of their weapons (not just by damage) different similar (probably same concept) design with a extra stat or an effect. You get the point. I hope that I was helpful rather than misleading
Yo Challacade i just wanted to say that you and a RUclipsr named Emeral were a huge inspiration for me to start coding and Game dev in general. Right now I'm at the very early stages at learning Unity and in general started with my whole coding 3 months ago. Thats why i still got a bunch to learn but vids like yours kinda remind me why i did the journey in the first place. Also i totally am for the weapon brake system. I personally like being forced to switch things up after a while. TOTK also expanded on this greatly with the Fuse System. Maybe you could do something similar like this for your game?
As someone who finds comfort in sameness and dislikes change, the perspective of a game forcing me to use different weapons because the old one broke and is gone forever, makes me not want to play the game, honestly. I can understand if you make it break and it can no longer be used UNTIL it's fixed. I'd say it's my favorite system. It may incentivize you to use different weapons, even if the other one is not broken, just to save it for later. Without forcing you to lose your favorite one. Imo best balance.
I hate it when the weapons break honestly! I'd much rather it enters some like, half damage state until I repair it. In Monster hunter you can sharpen your weapon, and it effects crit rate and eventually damage when it gets dull. But it never shatters! Maybe when the meter decreases all the way you can gain some kind of weapon experience? Unlocking new moves with different WXP levels?
The electric boss could make a ring around himself in the distance. Than the ring grows towards him but stops 3 steps away from him. This way you force a near distance fight for the time the ring exists. Also you could consider a jump which gives weapons a cooldown until the player can use these again. Because the character needs to find its balance after landing. The heavier the weapon the longer it takes. Another boss could have a push away 360degrees which makes you foggy while you can't move. This boss should be invulnerable to distance attacks. While another one is the other way around. One boss could leave behind some bombs. A big crab maybe could take you with its hand and hold you while attacking. So distance is key here...
2:50 very smart. One glaring flaw with this system is that it disincentivises actually engaging with enemies. "Why would I engage with enemies if I know my weapon is going to get weaker?" of course, if progression is actually tied to defeating enemies then this wouldn't actually be a flaw. One suggetion as to how you could make combat more aggressive and less passive is to introduce a parry system. Scourgebringer does something like this, where enemies would flash and then you would be able to do a strong attack to stun them. Alternatively you could allow the sword itself to eat up or bounce projectiles. Just a couple suggestions.
This is really long so sorry in advance lol I do think this is definitely an improvement over the BOTW/TOTK design, something that always bothered me though and the main "sad" feeling of losing a weapon was permanently losing the special uses it had, like for example I always wanted a general use weapon, a fire/ice/lightning weapon for all the interactions those help with in puzzles and different enemy weaknesses, a ranged weapon, a breaking point high damage weapon for mounting only etc. I feel like I would be more fine losing the "base" of the weapon and finding another sword lying around if I kept the special ability forever and could put it on that next. Say for example you beat that lightning boss in your game and you get a lightning spell or a magic item like that lightning rod from it, and that becomes a new infinite use but weak ability, you can use lightning now forever for any puzzles that require it or so you still have a chance against enemies only weak to lightning, but you can also combine that lightning spell or item with any weapons you find. they become much more powerful in this state and gain special moves and throws when on different weapons like say you throw a spear charged with lightning it could become a dark souls esque lightning spear fast powerful but precise projectile, a fire spear could make a weaker but bigger explosion radius fireball, and then swords, hammers, claymores, bows, etc would all do completely different types of things when combined with the different elements. THEN when you've used your final special throw move because it's lost its sharpness you get the basic lightning spell back and it's ready to combine with the next weapon you find and until then you still at least have the basic ability. You could even make it so there's some kind of trade off where when it's on your weapons you don't have the normal spell anymore like if there was a wind spell that let you hover over small holes you wouldn't want to get rid of that spell just to get a strong weapon in a boss room with tons of holes in the area. Then maybe the player would want to go with a less effective element against this specific enemy to keep the puzzle related abilities that help in that room, or like a light spell wouldn't let you make a light anymore to see in a dark room boss like the one you made. The more general overworld uses the uncombined powerups you get have the more trade-offs the player would have to consider of what weapons to bring to a boss. Some could give a better dodge, a one time shield, a buff to varying stats, visibility, immunity to status effects etc. I think this would make it feel more like what you want where the player is CHOOSING when to lose their cool weapon and still allows them to get a similarly cool one back fairly easily when they are ready. You would just then have to balance them really well to make sure one isn't the clearly best weapon always.
Maybe to repair or recharge the weapons or gear would require different things to do that. Like, a magical staff would require finding magic stones to power it up, and swords would require a smithy to fix and collecting metals. You could also do things like improving efficiency or durability to make less trips in the end game, Idk, depends how deep you like your game to get into that kind of stuff. Looking cool, nice work!
I think a lot of devs don't realize that gameplay variety comes far more from interesting enemies - the kind that require a specific solution to defeat, like learning enemy patterns in a Souls game, or figuring out the puzzle for a Zelda enemy - than weapon variety. You could have one singular main weapon with only a few attacks (Ocarina of Time) but the combat never gets stale because the enemies always keep things interesting.
Maybe simpler items like torches shouldn't be full blown flamethrowers like what you showed, but rather ONLY a throwable (and of course deal fire damage etc. etc.)
The issue with weapon breakage in BotW/TotK is that doesn't effect gameplay in any positive way. Players have a particular way they want to play so they just stockpile multiples of the same weapon or they maintain a small selection for speicifc uses and keep visiting Rocktoroks to repair them. All Nintendo did was create grind and davalue rare loot because players knew anything they'd find will just break after a few dozen uses. Rare items therefore ended up sitting in trophy stands for fear they'd be accidently destroyed. Combat variety therefore has to be defined by restrictions on the player which change. These changes should be not only telegraphed but also something the player can bypass to prevent frustration. One example of this is FF13 whereby enemies were very resistant to damage until you achieved a Limit Break. The two types of attack functioned differently, physical attacks did damage but barely rqised the limit break meter while magic attacks raised the meter but did little damage. On top of this certain enemies were resistant to physical or magical attacks meaning the player had to decide if they'd attempt to push for a limit break or if they'd buff themselves to just apply overwhelming physical attacks. This forced the player to not only make tacical choices but also use all of their skills. For your game a "stun" could be applied when using physical attacks that make them vulnerable to a magic attack that has to be charged. Then added elemental immunities so that players are forced to match the correct magic element. The alternative is to create combo systems whereby a damage modifier is applied to each subsequent attack in a chain when a combo is started. As you know this has formed the backbone of titles like Street Fighter and started off by being an unintended benefit of animation cancelling in the early arcade games since certain abilities would override the animation of another thereby reducing their length. For your game it could be something as simple as two sword swings ending with a wide swing of a spear that pushes you away from the target but allows for a rapidly charged spear throw or a running charge attack to move back into close range.
I believe other people have already described it better, but the idea of turning that “Charge” into a level of “Sharpness” is also interesting. If you want certain examples, Monster Hunter has a weapon sharpness system which determines the overall effectiveness of most weapons, divided in different degrees determined by a bar. In essence, if you keep constantly using weapons, you’ll lose the sharpness of them, up until they’re less effective, so you can either keep them in hand to repair them later (allowing players to keep using weapons they like), or throw them away to change up to something else.
I hit a jellyfish with a torch and the game crashed. It was a normal hit, not a throw if that makes any difference. The weapons feel great so far, only complaint being a lack of a 'charge up icon' to indicate that trying to throw a weapon takes a bit of a delay. If the tutorial says this, I kind of skipped it by going through the water at the start, which I thought wouldn't work lol. As for if they should break, maybe they get a few hits after their yellow bar runs out? Another little thing, changing your color when you're holding an item (rock/pot) results in the red outfit's head displaying without a body, except for when facing up, which will show the chosen color properly.
I think the weapons are a great idea, I just wonder what if there might be other ways to incentivize weapon choice besides breaking them. Giving weapons different properties, damage types, or special attacks might be a better incentive here. I'm reminded of the Megaman system, where bosses and enemies have different weaknesses so players that are trying to play efficiently are forced into using different weapon types. If weapons had special attacks maybe they only recharge their energy to do so when it's not currently in use, so it incentives switching weapons to get higher damage and better flexibility. In this system I think weapons would be permanent and couldn't break though. But great work! And I've been excited to continue seeing this project get done.
On the topic of positive incentive, what if instead of having every new weapon fully charged, every new weapon is "uncharged"? And with every hit, it slowly charges. And when it's charged, you can use a super attack that's so powerful that it destroys the weapon. So instead of "being done" with a weapon after you used all its magic, you trigger it when it's ready to do something cool. You're not throwing it when it's depleated, you fire it when it's ready.
when throwing a weapon. if its full on charge. then why not do extra damage up to a threshold ? for example if it does 10 damage per hit when having charges. then when you throw it at full charge. you should do 20.. and remove 20% per charge hit , with the lowest point being Base Damage + 20% (as an idea. you dont have to do anything like that)
That is an awesome System. I always hate it when a Weapon breaks in games when i have grow to it... this way, you keep and play with it. Nice! Maybe a way to 'recharge' or sharpen it back up would be nice. Good job!
Hey man love your content! I might be little late here and maybe you are already done with this problem, but to make player use different weapons I think it would be good idea to add another weapon system like give already existing weapons one more characteristic and make some enemies immune to this characteristic. Kinda like god of war had ice type enemies which was immune to leviathan axe. Wish you best of luck!
Hello, I am an aspiring game developer in my senior year trying to get a jumpstart on my career. I have an independent study class with a teacher who is workong hard with me to get something going. I have no coding knowledge but im starting courses for C++ as my language of choice and Godot as my engine for starters. I would love if you could give me any feedback on how you started out and got to the point where you are now? What are some free courses, tools, tricks, or things to do that could elevate my skill and experience in the world of game dev?
The name for the “weapon charge system” should be Calle the “Beginner’s Luck” system because you just got a new weapon and you get lucky with the first few strikes. But this means you need to add an inventory system so that if you wnat to keep beginners luck, you can switch to another weapon.
Most of the weapons in Breath/Tears function identically. I'm convinced durability stands mainly as a reward, then as soft level scaling (based on inventory size), and lastly as a means for variety.
I know nobody else would really like this idea, but there should be a small shield and dagger class. The dagger could be shorter range, but it could either stun the enemy, or do extra damage or piercing, like causing enemies' armour to break quicker (if armor is in the game, this is my first time watching your channel.) (:
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I personally think you should have an “inventory” like a spot to hold one weapon. But SPECIFICALLY ONE more weapon to incentivise switching. Also if you have two really cool weapons you want to keep, then you have a slot to have it! Understandable if you don’t want to do this.
or maybe also a chance to get rare items that are boss themed items from which boss the player kills
@@reedle132smart!
I agree with this because that is something a zelda four swords did, and it worked, but to make you own spin on it would be fun
maybe not 1, but a limited amount
@@montageofchips I said one MORE slot. For example you could have great sword and spear but that’s it.
Maybe make a boss use an attack that spawns weapons for the player to use. Maybe the boss makes spears rain down from the sky or something? Seems like a really neat idea to me!
Electric boss's projextiles should electrify the water when they land, forcing the player on the square path
Valve tried to force players in l4d2 to swap weapons more often by reducing the maximum reserve ammo you have, but it really doesn't matter because regardless ammo is still abundant enough to never warrant swapping weapons. And running out of ammo on a primary weapon isn't really a big deal if you use the super OP melee weapns
Edit after watching whole vid: your current system of limited time bonus is rly good. You dont get punished for keeping it, but you get a slight bonus for switching to new one 👌
i wonder if you can charge a weapon _up_ instead of _down,_ and when it's fully charged you have to throw it for a "shatter" effect that does increased damage, maybe even a special per-weapon effect.
i honestly hate the "weapon break" damage mechanic in games, so that might be a way to further invert the negative incentive of using a weapon.
Instead of weapon charge, call it weapon sharpness/bluntness. When its at its maximum sharpness it deals most damage and then blunts over time to a minimum of it being just a slab of metal that does the least damage.
PS: the boss' eye glowing in the dark is a really nice touch
Monster Hunter GANG
It may work, but may be a bit odd, given that a lot of weapons aren't sharp, like having a torch "sharpness/bluntness" seems weird, but maybe it's fine.
The trouble with the charge system is that it is all negatives still. Players will be hesistant to use something because they'll want to save it for a boss so, like in BotW, the best way to play is to NOT attack enemies unless you have to. You've now pushed players into a situation where they'll spend their time dodging enemies and resent instances when they're forced into a fight where they're not rewarded with fully charged weapons to replace the ones you've made them use.
This also creates balancing issues whereby you don't know if a player is using a fully charged weapon or not. One may say, "well its only a small amount of bonus damage" but to that I'd say "Well then why add a feature that is so trivial in the first place?"
Like Monster Hunter and lies of P
Yes!! And then you could have a blacksmith in town you can pay to re-sharpen, or find whetstones as items for one-time sharpening.
I have always thought that breaking weapons could give a certain resource that could repair your other better weapons, still encouraging using other weapons while still allowing your favorites to not be gone forever
This sounds like an excellent idea! Would require an inventory of some sort, to carry more weapons. I think with a very limited weapon inventory, this could work well. Allows the player to use and keep that awesome weapon they like, and encourages the player in a positive way to use AND throw other weapons. Perhaps the throw damage could also be tied to the charge of the weapons, lower charge = more damage.
You could also add the ability to recharge/repair weapons. Maybe have a repair kiosk or a repair spell. Maybe have it cost some money. This way, if a player has a weapon they really like, they could hold onto it and occasionally recharge it.
Yes, I subscribe to this idea of weapons becoming "dull" after some use and the ability to repair them.
Good way to insert a blacksmith in the game (everybody love blacksmith !)
@@davidrudpedersen5622dull is great, doesn't make it useless just cost money to be the best it can be.
well, yea but that completely ruins the purpose of having weapon energy/ durability which is to throw the weapon and find a new one when it runs out of energy
@@ag1015 It doesn't ruin anything. It adds another dimension to it. You can toss your weapon and find a new one or you can manage your money and look for a blacksmith. The game could even be designed to require a fully charged weapon to defeat higher level bosses. This adds to the strategy. You know you'll need to prepare your weapons before battle.
There could potentially even be weapon enhancements you could buy from the blacksmith in later levels.
I know it's not much but anything to add one more pixel to this lovely project. Thanks for keeping Love2D alive for us upcoming developers.
Thank you!!
The Eye boss lacks AOE attacks and laser attacks. Give it the ability to summon minions which attacks you and heals the boss so players are forced to deal with them quickly thus adding tension to the fight also adding traps in the arena that damage both player and boss will make things a lot more interesting
Maybe flip it around? Instead of you losing durability, you start with the bar empty and fill it up with each attack. It still deals less damage when full, but instead of treating it as "It's broke, throw the trash away" you make it feel like "You have charged it up! Throw it for a bonus!"
I think the name “Hood” would sound good sense it describes the characters design and just sounds cool!
I think giving an incentive to use different weapons is great. A friend of mine loves Doom Eternal, and I'm pretty sure in that game you don't have a pistol with infinite ammo.
What if you gave each weapon a "breaking effect"? Like when the lightning rod "breaks", it can do 1 final attack where it creates a thunderstorm area that deals damage every second for a few seconds?
Love your stuff, keep going my guy❤
That sound really cool.
Love this idea! This also insensitivities switching weapons so you can get another “break attack” on an enemy!
Maybe adding a system where you can turn certain weapons you pickup into a permanent weapon might be cool. Some people might like certain weapons more than the standard sword and being able to permanently replace it might be cool.
Honestly, the weapon charge mechanic is a really good idea in my opinion!
2nd
Also, great update, using only a sword does seem a bit boring, this was a good decision :)
The game looks fun. I teach pixel art if anyone is interested. Working on a game too...
The bar can be referred to players as “Weapon Prime” as you can inform players that using the weapon will cause it to dull or blunt down. Also some ideas you add:
-Spear/Lance Weapons deal more throwing damage
-Spear/Lance/Axe weapons have more throwing distance
-The camera slightly zooms out more when aiming a weapon throw
-Shops carry weapons that have increased durability
-Visiting a blacksmith or using an anvil to slightly restore weapon Prime
hope this helps and your game is looking great
I definitely think it’s a good system for weapons, also a unique one that will help your game to stand apart. However I also feel like having just one weapon isn’t a bad thing. Games like Hollow knight and Deaths door both made excellent use of their single weapon while mixing in spells and bows to somewhat vary gameplay, but having that one weapon doesn’t hurt a game it’s just how you implant it along with the enemy gameplay.
Hi! I was very impressed with your game, and I was wondering how you implemented this behavior of bullets in your game? And could you tell me in which direction to move in order to achieve a similar result?
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I þink a “charge” system could work?
It’s long shot but maybe using a weapon (in relatively short range) can build up a charge þat, when full:
-gives extra damage when þrown
-maybe an extra effect when þrown (like multishot or exploding on impact)
-But you can overcharge & it empties & þen it recharges half as fast?
I þink it could work given human’s preferences to number go up but I’m no expert
The point of breaking weapons is to incentivize the use of multiple different weapons. In this, they are outclassed; I have learned from trading card games that players simply want to use what they have, and just saying No is almost always a bad idea. What you need to do is somehow make the use of multiple different weapons optimal. Maybe some sort of Debuff/Buff Alchemy, with certain enemies being immune to certain debuffs?
One way you could encourage players to be more reckless with weapons(instead of just saving them) and encourage variety without negative rewards, would be to implement some way to regenerate, summon, or recall weapons.
Imagine a magic skill that spawns a random weapon to be equipped(on a cooldown), or perhaps a specific one, weapons that you can throw and have them come back to you, or an upgrade that lets you pick up a bunch of the pieces of the environment at once to throw(think multiple rocks on the screen, activate the spell, and then all those rocks are magnetized to you and rotate around you mario kart turtle shell style). You could also do some types of projectiles(throwing stars, knives, bombs?) that have amounts you can purchase or pick-up, sort of like arrows in many games. With that type of system, you could encourage players to use them a lot in certain areas, and then switch things up in other areas.
Another option could be a way to make it so once you've "discovered" a weapon, you've never truly lost it after durability is gone. Maybe once you unlock a weapon, you can use currency or charge of some type to summon, purchase, or craft them again.
A silly option you could try, is having a "magic bag" type thing with endless room. Think of a portal that you can throw tons of random objects into(I think literally throwing them into it would be fun), and then later on you can have it spit them out at random. Maybe you have upgrades that let you change how many it spits out at a time, or how many it can store. I just think the idea of being in a boss battle, and using a skill to spit out a bunch of weapons seems really funny to me. I'm sure you could expand this idea into many different ways. Maybe you throw a torch into it, and then you can summon fire from the portal for a little bit, or perhaps until you throw something else in. Would be a good way to encourage people to get rid of their weapons in the search of new things that the portal does.
Weapons that break is a really bad gimmick to force people to us new weapons. IMO the recent Zelda games aren't actually fun and are only fun due to popularity/nostalgia. Weapons breaking often is just plain irritating and un-immerssive by forcing you into a menu to swap.
The weapon recharge mechanic is a fantastic spin on this. Just avoid the menu cycling issue!
personally, I hate it when weapons break. like.. crow bars in zombie games. crow bars last for years of abuse, but they break if you hit a squishy zombie 5 times with it?
weapons shouldn't break unless abused. hitting a rock monster with a wizard staff? that might break it.
hitting a rock monster with a sword? that'll definitely dull it.
hitting a rock monster with a pick axe? you should be good for years.
in DnD, skeletons take more damage from blunt weapons than stabbing or slashing weapons.
If your sword gets dull, it does less damage. same with a spear point.
a cudgel won't really deteriorate that much though, but perhaps doesn't do as much damage against certain types of creatures.
sharpening stones can fix your dull weapons and get them battle ready again.
for boss fights.. environmental attacks might be the way to go.. just like your fire torches, if there are boulders you can push down on the creature, temple pillars you can collapse onto it, spiked traps, triplines, something that changes the boss's state which then allows you to make some sort of attack.. like throwing oil on it from a barrel, allowing you to then set fire to it, after which it is stunned, and then you can run in and smash it until it gets up... or maybe when it's down, you attach a chain to one of its legs and after 4 of those hold its arms and legs, the fifth chain goes around its neck and its captured. lots of possibilities. just think, "what can we do where I'm not just whacking it"... what can you place in the area to use against it? exploding barrels? tentacle creature in the lake? oil lamps to make the ground slick, or to oil it up to catch fire..
It would be cool to have like enchantments or something (name doesnt really matter) where you could empower your base sword with a certain weapon by sacrificing it. It would be a weaker version, like your sword sometimes shoots lightning bolts or has a chance to light things on fire from sacrificing the torch, maybe sometimes you have a heavy attack if you sacrifice a greatsword/axe, the sword becomes bigger if you sacrifice a spear, stuff like that. But it would last for longer so you could decide if you want the short term power from just the weapon or a longer buff thats weaker.
i think a more unique thing you could do is have the weapon charge up upon each attack. once its fully charged you can then do a powerful throw attack. maybe like imbuing the weapon with your magic power and it becomes unstable?
i have an idea where whenever you got a new weapon you can craft it for free in a certain machine only found on checkpoints/house (since this is my first video i watch from the channel) and after boss fights (you can't remake the weapon mid-fights) also you need to only have limited amount of weapons in inventory.
The tradeoff here is that if you have a special weapon you like, you might be less inclined to fight enemies. I'm not sure what direction you're taking with the spells, but maybe having a greater focus on these and making spells not have durability but rather be limited by a mana bar, you'd have to utilize both. Similar to the BioShock series.
Maybe instead of a throw you can make the weapons do a certain skill if it's been used past like 80%, like a super skill to make it satisfying to get rid of your weapon :D
i havent finished yet, but i would suggest making weaker cheaper weapons only should break
You could could try to incentivise "Throwing away" the weapon, not by throwing it, but by triggering a special ability that results in the weapon breaking? IE the magic rod could shoot a bigger ball, or laser, but after that the rod shatters. The axe could be a whirlwind attack, the sword a flurry of strikes, and the spear a large piercing ranged attack. Rather than draining a durability bar, the players could build a special attack bar. That way the player will feel like they are building to a big attack, rather than draining what little durability the weapon has left.
That's a cool idea!!
This was also along my thinking. Loving the suggestions for special abilities!
One more thought: This mechanic could play nicely together with the slot system some people were suggesting. After charging up a weapon, you could store it in a slot instead of immediately throwing it away, and then pick a new weapon to charge.
Allowing players to unlock more slots as they progress could lead to some juicy mega combo attacks on bosses as the player unloads 5 fully charged special attacks on them
You could have golden weapons level down when you use it and pay gold to level them up again for example.
the torches making the boss catch on fire, which lights it up, is a nice touch :D
I think you should change your approach to making players want to engage with more of your sandbox so that theres more variety in the gameplay.
Arbitrary weapon durability, like in TOTK, is one of the things people dislike the most about the game, being forced to use something different than what you enjoy because the game decides so isn't a necessarily fun mechanic.
Your solution, while preferable, would probably cause people to get frustrated, as the weapon theyve enjoyed using now isnt viable and they have to use something they might not enjoy, which isn't a fun experience.
If you feel like people wont want to engage with your sandbox over their default weapons, try and find a way that would incentivise them to do so, look at the weapons you're adding and think "how can I make the player want to use this weapon" wether thats by having different encounters take more damage from different weapons or add complexity to the weapon that would draw the player to it.
At the end of the day, no matter how much you might enjoy your additions, players will gravitate towards certain options they deem the most enjoyable and viable. You should try and increase the options the player will want to pick, as oppose to force options onto the player.
Bear with me for a minute.
World of Warcraft used to do something similar; after playing the game for too long you would become "Restless" reducing your XP gained from all sources, many players did not like this because they felt it penalized them for playing the game - and I think that is a big factor in mechanics, 'fun' needs to be a core consideration, and a mechanic that punishes your players will always be an obstacle to that 'fun'. Instead, what they chose to do was simple, they changed "restless" to be the game's base state, and instead, logging on after some time offline or in a safe zone, gave you a "rested" buff which increased your XP gained.
Instead of a system that 'breaks' weapons, I would posit some form of "charge" meter, that fills as you damage enemies, culminating in an empowered attack that breaks your weapon - or something to that effect.
Reward your players, make them want to throw away their weapon, not because they have to, but because they want to.
Also, some kind of choice would lead to an interesting gameplay loop, if you had a choice of what to do with your weapons, whether it be discarding it, using it until it breaks or some third option (like combining it with a new weapon you pick up - whether that would increase the durability of one weapon by sacrificing the other, or some other dynamic effect where each weapon would give a buff when consumed)
I'd just like to say it's always really cool to see a novel approach to games like this, I hope if nothing else, you find inspiration in these comments, good luck :)
U should check out Bloodroots gameplay. For retaining certain weapons, they'll get that weapon's scrap after breaking. Like when a fire rod breaks, they'll get fire rod scrap then they can go to a shop and use the fire rod scrap to build the fire rod again
You can incentivize it by making it so the more weapons they throw, either unlocks some buff or grants even more gold. If you have this permanent system in place you will ALWAYS want to throw it because it gives you a mechanic with progress you can work towards.
I like this idea a lot. Maybe weapons get stronger the more times you've broken that type of weapon before?
One thing you could do to encourage throwing is to ad aoe shrapnel
That’s a really clever way of having the player use new weapons! Instead of having the weapon break entirely, just have it degrade and become less powerful. The player wouldn’t feel as hurt having a weapon lose potency compared to having a weapon destroyed.
I think that the system is good since you have an unbreakable sword that yiu can use if you don't want to waste stuff. But i think there should be a way to swap to the sword without trowing it away, like if you found something cool that you want to use for stronger ennemmies or a boss you can still use your sword for weaker ennemies. Obviously i think that there should only be one slot gor the destructible weapon so you don't hoard them.
You could have the weapons get dull. Then find a stone to sharpen them
I think one way of incentive to change weapons is making some enemies weaker to a specific weapon, for example a slime might be really resistant to sword hits but would receive lot of damage when hit with a spear
Wait I got an idea for the name: battle charge or adrenaline !
You should make monsters more resistent to certain damage types, these in turn would prepare you for the boss.
Very nice balance! It reminds me of Wind Waker where you can pick up enemy weapons and chuck them back at them, except now the break.
I think calling it something along the lines of "sharpness" would be fitting. I know it doesn't make sense for a wooden staff to be sharp but Monster Hunter has you sharpening your hammers so I think it would work here too.
I think a lot of it depends on what you want with your game. but whatever you do go all in. if you just go for a normal combat system just make it super freaking good and if you use the charge/weapon system make that the hook of you game. use the weapons for everything, puzzels, bosses, NPCs, platforming. have it feel like the core piece of your game.
you should add objectives or a story line
Gotta say, I didn't play totk but I absolutely hate weapon durability in botw. Despite being a great game, I think it was the wrong design choice and it would be better if it was totally eliminated and replaced with nothing. At least make it like many RPGs that came before it, give weapons sharpness that reduces their damage the more you use them and allow you to repair them. Durability is annoying enough to me that it is the thing that makes me stop playing botw when it happens in the middle of fights where I was having fun. The mechanic in the first place just makes combat less fun and feels bad. The rest of the stuff around it is like an apology to the player for making them mad. It's trying to band-aid a problem that you caused on purpose. But it still doesn't accomplish fixing the fun because it still feels bad and annoying when your weapons break, or even when they just run out of power like the master sword and become useless. I think indie devs very often look to great games for ideas, and think since the game is good all the mechanics in the game must also be good, which just isn't the case. Some games are good despite certain mechanics, not because of them.
There are other ways to make weapons temporary. Personally I like systems where weapons are consumables and you can use duplicates to upgrade the ones you already have, or just that you can sell extras for money that you can use for other things. Having them break when you throw them is good too, but I think that usually just means people will never throw them because there isn't a huge advantage to it vs using up the weapon normally. You could have relics that power up weapons, but only weapons of a certain type. Then people will see a great rune for spears, but if they currently have a greatsword, they'll want to find a spear to use with it. Another good way to encourage variety is have them be randomly different somehow, like you can find a lv3 greatsword but if you currently have a lv1 spear, you'll want to switch to the greatsword. Since it's a rougelike and not an adventure like zelda, you'll find ones with different levels or attributes each time, and that alone will encourage people to switch. Once you have the level 3 spear during a run, you want to use it for the rest of the run. And that's fine and good.
But I also think people don't really need an incentive to use different weapons if they're all balanced, it's fun enough to try the different ones if you get bored of the same one. Especially in a rouglelike where you lose all your stuff each run anyway. And if you never get bored of the same one, it's a non issue and I think it's best to just let the player use whatever weapon they want. They will have more fun that way.
I don't want to be harsh, but if melee weapons break or run out of juice in the final version of your game, I'm not going to play it and I probably would have otherwise. But it's your game and if you have more fun with that mechanic in it, then go for it. Maybe other people will like it and it's just me.
First time seeing your channel but my suggestion would be a weapon endurance system.
Basically every weapon has an endurance like you have shown, these weapons when they are used lose endurance like you shown with your system.
However, when your not using the weapon, it gains a little bit of endurance back every few seconds or so, faster when not in combat because why wait outside of combat.
This would players to choice to keep there current weapons without being punished for over using it.
I would also suggest that if a player does run out of endurance, the weapon recharge rate isn't hindered but its actually increased slightly, though add a required endurance limit for the weapon to be back at its maximum damage. at this point during this stage throwing the weapon should also do more damage then throwing the weapon normally, maybe even more coins with it.
If you had an inventory and a ton of weapons, maybe then you could fully prevent a player from using a weapon but from what I can see something like about should be simple enough for players to get, as long as you have the sounds, particial effects and colours right.
Also, take a sub!
Another option instead of discharging the weapon could be charging it. Deals normal damage when picked up, attack enemies to charge it, once charged can be thrown with some extra damage. It doesn’t break after being thrown, you can pick it up again but it won’t charge this time and throwing it again will break it.
maybe you get weapon shards when the item breaks? then you can use those shards to recreate the weapon or to make a new one entirely
I was thinking something similar to this, but decided just for now to go with money. I like the shards idea though...
@@Challacade ty, its an idea i had for a long time but idk how to code so i'd love to see it in a game
I think that weapons should either deal more damage after being thrown or simply don't get destroyed (also not dropping coins).
Never break! It’s the worst.
One way i'm experimenting with this problem of "hit and dodge only" is to have a "build up" system on most of the skills.
So most skills build up momentum in some way, buffs, debuffs, stacks, synergies, etc. So the player can capitalize on it and force himself to just keep hitting as much as possible or turn it around and try to build defense momentum and go into a more passive mode.
The main goal is to give the player as much agency as possible and not just be subject to the rhythm of the pre-designed pattern of boss attacks.
There's a indie Turn based RPG that did something similar and it's really fun when you play it, while being an incredibly simple system. They had a "heat bar" that builds up as you use skills and changes the output of the skills if it crosses 2 fixed thresholds of heat.
You could do a weapon quality tier system,like; pristine, good, dull, damaged and after an X amount of hits it drops to the lower tier which has worse stats like less damage. You can repair the weapon to bring it up a tier. I don't think they should completely break but the damaged tier would suck.
Try what I'm doing with my game, make them have different power levels, so it keeps the "player has a choice" aspect without the negativity of he breaking weapon, example: you find a sword with 10 power, later down the line, you find one with 30, do you switch or not is your choice
just a quick thought about the lightning boss, you could have the lightning staff's be around the arena, but if the player is holding them they get struck with lightning, you could further reinforce the idea by having all of the staff's be hit by lightning in the arena so the player sees this and knows that they should pick up the staff right after a lightning attack, but also so they know that they have limited time and have to make the most of it on top of the durability!
Maybe with your “charge” system, to incentivize using up your weapon and wanting to change, make the weapons deal more damage or have special effects when thrown at 0 charge, or maybe even switch it up and make the system work by charging up your weapon to eventually use it up for a big “charged throw” attack?
Hi there ! I'm new to your dev logs, and I wanted to know if there was weapons upgrades implemented in your game. You could upgrade your weapon for more damage, but losing some distance advantage or something. Like if you carry a great sword, it could be upgrade for a smaller one with some attack speed increase, or be larger but slower and having more damages. It could change the way you play !
unless the dulled version of a weapon is always worse than the sword, I think I wouldn't throw it at all without a new, definitively better one comfortably nearby
also, this system could potentially feel cumbersome if players feel the need to regularly backtrack to pick up weapons after throwing theirs, though that could probably be mitigated if weapons of ascending strength are founder the further you travel
that said, haven't played it! maybe I'll check it out when I have the time
Something in my dream game that I wanted to share was bluntness. Instead of weapons breaks like BotW or Minecraft, over time, a bar goes down and for every 25% it goes down, you deal a little less damage. These can be sharpened at sharpening stations or with certain abilities. Feel free to use this!
Edit: And for that name for that charge, what about simply "Charge-up"? It's really simple, but I think it has a nice ring to it. But, hey, it's your game.
Respecftully, I am heavily against weapon durability. With all games adding it nowadays, I'm sick of it. I never felt like it added a whole lot, and IMO it's really annoying to deal with. In my opinion, the need to force the players to use different weapons shouldn't be needed if the weapons themselves are interesting. In my opinion, the game should be fun without durability, otherwise the durability is just a crutch (in a sense) to force engagement. Here are a few of my biggest gripes when it comes to weapon durability (Most of my examples will be coming from Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom):
-I actually feel like it makes exploring worse. For example in BOTW/TOTK, Why go out of your way to look for a chest, when all it contains is a weapon that is no different from the many others I already have or found in the past? It really dilutes the experience for me. Finding a weapon in Elden ring/Dark Souls feels special, because even if I never use it, it's always *completely* unique, and one-of-a-kind. You don't get that kind of novelty with durability.
-Conservation strategy is often too simple to justify it for me. Use ice weapons vs fire enemies, for instance. I can't really think of any other scenario which would justify swapping a specific weapon. Everything else just varies in damage. In BOTW/TOTK Shields are literally identical from each other in function unless you're parrying with them, and parrying causes you to avoid durability loss, so I don't really understand the need.
-Enemy variety suffers. At least in BOTW/TOTK, because weapons would break all the time, every enemy had to be a humanoid monster that could hold weapons for link to pick up after they are defeated. TOTK is slighty better in this regard, but not by a whole lot.
-Sometimes I just want to use a weapon for a while because it looks nice. Can't do this if it breaks in a few minutes.
-And here is the biggest one, I hate being pressured to avoid a fight because of durability. Man a lot of times I want to jump into a group of low tier enemies and slash away without being punished for it.
I like the idea of using the different weapons, and I think you've perfectly created incentives to use them. My only request would be that you could make any weapon your "main" weapon and perhaps upgrade it. This way you're always getting a benefit by grabbing random weapons you see, but you can see make any weapon a "main" that you keep forever and upgrade as much as the game allows.
As for the bosses, although I think it's great to have bosses that have their own "gimmick," I think a boss being just mano-a-mano, you with your present equipment versus the boss with its own equipment, is a good idea too, from a storytelling perspective. Sometimes you just want to feel like a badass going up against another badass, and there's nothing external in the way.
In some games, you use the environment to fight the enemy because it works for the CHARACTER, who would be unable to normally defeat a powerful opponent; but in this game you're obviously becoming a warrior, so not every boss, perhaps, would require trickery.
Then again, I can see that you could easily fight either of these bosses without the external objects, so as long as the option is there, at least in some fights, to go it without assistance, then I think I'd be happy.
I don't think the weapon charge system is a positive incentive to switch weapons. instead of annoyed the weapon broke, you're annoyed the weapon is not doing its maximum damage. Maybe make it so weapons that break power up your next few attacks, or have weapons charge a final super attack that also breaks the weapon, so players want that to happen, instead of dreading that moment
How about the thrown bonus damage scales with the durability left on the weapon? Or not even that, just that if the weapon has durability on it it does something extra? That way people would be incentivized to throw the weapon before it has lost of it's charge giving them some extra incentive to do so
I'm thinking about starting a project using Löve2D instead of other famous engines, like Godot. With all this development time, what are you thinking about Löve2D?
I personally love the system you came up with as well as someone's proposed idea of referring to it as "sharpness/bluntness". Until hearing your idea though, I was thinking that having a repair system where if you use money/resources, it increases in cost for each repair, but that system works better for weapons with a unique identity, like named Uniques from Diablo. Also, if weapons have different rarities, weapons of higher rarity can get more repairs. For example, commons get 1 repair, uncommons get 2 repairs, rares get 3, etc.
PS - Just found your videos and I'm really enjoying seeing gameplay of this so far and I hope it is a great success by your standards!
I personally love the system you cane up with as well as someone's proposed idea of referring to it as "sharpness/bluntness". Until hearing your idea though, I was thinking that having a repair system where if you use money/resources, it increases in cost for each repair, but that system works better for weapons with a unique identity, like named Uniques from Diablo. Also, if weapons have different rarities, weapons of higher rarity can get more repairs. For example, commons get 1 repair, uncommons get 2 repairs, rares get 3, etc.
PS - Just found your videos and I'm really enjoying seeing gameplay of this so far and I hope it is a great success by your standards!
So about your weapon charge system; Currently it has a negative consquence (reduced damage) to nudge players into changing weapons-which I think is fine and well. What if there were a positive aspect to it as well? Maybe the throw could have some additional splash damage could be increased the more the weapon was previously used. That way, the narrative of the system won't be 'I'm being punished for using weapons I like' (which is what a lot of players took away from BOTW/TOTK's systems), but something more akin to 'if I use this weapon a lot, I'll be rewarded with a satisfying finisher'.
EDIT: I also think that you could do a lot with this throw finisher in terms of synergy. I imagine some weapons like the lightning rod could inflict special status afflictions when thrown, that would in turn synergize well with other weapons (throwing a torch could set the enemies on fire, inflicting a burn effect, that would lead to increased damage for a weapon like a wind sword or a broom)
You could make enemy’s with immunity to certain attacks to get people to use other weapons for example enemies immune to magic (torch/lightning staff)
What makes totk and botw durability frustrating for some players is that there’s no fall back weapon so there’s a lot of punishment for being careless as there’s the possibility you can be left literally empty handed. I love the durability system in those games as you can use every enemy’s weapon but you’re still sometimes worried about ending up with no weapon so it slows you down. Fall back weapon incentivizes experimentation and fun because you don’t have punishing consequences, instead you fall back to familiarity which for some players can be comforting.
I'd opt for a middleground. My favorite game ever, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, has weapons that degrade, and when they "break" and reach zero durability, you can no longer wield them, but if you go to a blacksmith - or have armorer's hammers - you can repair it to use it again. That allows you to have the mechanic of degradable weapons, while also allowing for players to return to weapons they really like.
you could at least put a limit on the dodging like connecting it with the stamina, other part you could improve more is boss fight, is good and all that they are easy to fight, is more importantly to make boss hard too, player should at least have some hard time in the games, is like a challenge for them to fight... As well this is my thought you should put a mode on the EYE boss that will turn everything dark, and you can't see it until his eye opens up in the dark, and you can throw your weapon or something to his direction on the eye... in term I feel like that could give the players more use of the throwing item choice then just attacking it or kiting it, take this as a example on using your throwing mechanic in game. As well you could improve something on the lighting girl boss fight, like making a giant attack the whole entire island, that you must dodge at the right time to avoid it... As well importantly add inventory. The reason is switching weapons, as well throwing your weapon... As well Please put more boss more focused on some dodging, as well throwing too, you can't just focus on only slashing, it would be very dull then...Players want is Excitement, challenges, as well having fun!!!
as well please, make things balance to other weapons. Don't make a weapon that can be so powerful, is more better if weapon just kept the same attack, so player's can't just one punch alot monster and bosses, it would be very boring for other people... As one said "The weapon is not the weapon, is the Weider himself or herself."
P.S Remember to add something hidden for player's to enjoy, and have fun at... Good Luck ON YOUR GAME!!! 😁
Durability is also a nice feature, but I chose the number of attacks for each weapon both ranged and melee (it's like ammo in a gun).
Hi, just my 2 cents for an idea. Also enjoyed the video and look of your game!
Like others have said, you can call it 'Weapon sharpness'. The idea of an inventory and stashing an extra weapon could work but it might take away from how you want to design the game/combat.
I propose a way of re sharping weapons. Specifically your sword by sheathing it. The catch though is that your little dude can't sheath and draw his sword without first holding a different weapon. Maybe some lore about your dude being cursed or the sword sentient and jealous until you physical "cast" (throw) your other weapon away.
Hopefully that'd encourage people to seek out, try and throw weapons as it gives your sword bonus damage back. Down the line you can add skills that change the bonus damage to elemental or simply add it. Maybe a skill that powers your held weapon when your sword is sheathed or heals you when drawing your sword. Also maybe skills that change your main weapon (sword) to different weapons so each run can be a little different, dunno if you are making a roguelike or not though. :)
Hopefully these ideas help get your brain chugging again to find something you like!
I think your version of the weapons are just temporary upgrades/buffs like in an arcade game, they're disposable, you want to grab them because they up your damage, you don't have enough time with them to feel ownership over them, so you don't feel like you lose them when they expire either.
I would make them have a timer on top of this bar, this makes them even more volatile and your expectations on them are, well temporary.
You could make items that "dispense" these weapons to clear certain area's you want them to have "permanent weapon upgrades" for.
and people wont be able to take them to zones too far away because... they expire.
Their power should be way flashier though if you do this. Like crazy magical swords that have an aoe star-emitting-spin or something idk..
Just my 2 cents and immediate thought when i saw this ..
What about instead of weapons even have durability making them match play styles? Like for example the durability system in a game called (tails of iron). The weapons don’t loose durability but they’re adjusted based mostly on play style, the weapons could be two handed or one handed (which determine if you can use two weapons at the same time or not )makes you slower / takes more stamina, etc. and player would find better version of their weapons (not just by damage) different similar (probably same concept) design with a extra stat or an effect. You get the point. I hope that I was helpful rather than misleading
Yo Challacade i just wanted to say that you and a RUclipsr named Emeral were a huge inspiration for me to start coding and Game dev in general. Right now I'm at the very early stages at learning Unity and in general started with my whole coding 3 months ago. Thats why i still got a bunch to learn but vids like yours kinda remind me why i did the journey in the first place. Also i totally am for the weapon brake system. I personally like being forced to switch things up after a while. TOTK also expanded on this greatly with the Fuse System. Maybe you could do something similar like this for your game?
As someone who finds comfort in sameness and dislikes change, the perspective of a game forcing me to use different weapons because the old one broke and is gone forever, makes me not want to play the game, honestly. I can understand if you make it break and it can no longer be used UNTIL it's fixed. I'd say it's my favorite system. It may incentivize you to use different weapons, even if the other one is not broken, just to save it for later. Without forcing you to lose your favorite one. Imo best balance.
I hate it when the weapons break honestly! I'd much rather it enters some like, half damage state until I repair it.
In Monster hunter you can sharpen your weapon, and it effects crit rate and eventually damage when it gets dull. But it never shatters!
Maybe when the meter decreases all the way you can gain some kind of weapon experience? Unlocking new moves with different WXP levels?
The electric boss could make a ring around himself in the distance. Than the ring grows towards him but stops 3 steps away from him. This way you force a near distance fight for the time the ring exists.
Also you could consider a jump which gives weapons a cooldown until the player can use these again. Because the character needs to find its balance after landing. The heavier the weapon the longer it takes.
Another boss could have a push away 360degrees which makes you foggy while you can't move. This boss should be invulnerable to distance attacks. While another one is the other way around.
One boss could leave behind some bombs. A big crab maybe could take you with its hand and hold you while attacking. So distance is key here...
2:50 very smart.
One glaring flaw with this system is that it disincentivises actually engaging with enemies. "Why would I engage with enemies if I know my weapon is going to get weaker?"
of course, if progression is actually tied to defeating enemies then this wouldn't actually be a flaw.
One suggetion as to how you could make combat more aggressive and less passive is to introduce a parry system. Scourgebringer does something like this, where enemies would flash and then you would be able to do a strong attack to stun them. Alternatively you could allow the sword itself to eat up or bounce projectiles. Just a couple suggestions.
This is really long so sorry in advance lol
I do think this is definitely an improvement over the BOTW/TOTK design, something that always bothered me though and the main "sad" feeling of losing a weapon was permanently losing the special uses it had, like for example I always wanted a general use weapon, a fire/ice/lightning weapon for all the interactions those help with in puzzles and different enemy weaknesses, a ranged weapon, a breaking point high damage weapon for mounting only etc. I feel like I would be more fine losing the "base" of the weapon and finding another sword lying around if I kept the special ability forever and could put it on that next.
Say for example you beat that lightning boss in your game and you get a lightning spell or a magic item like that lightning rod from it, and that becomes a new infinite use but weak ability, you can use lightning now forever for any puzzles that require it or so you still have a chance against enemies only weak to lightning, but you can also combine that lightning spell or item with any weapons you find. they become much more powerful in this state and gain special moves and throws when on different weapons like say you throw a spear charged with lightning it could become a dark souls esque lightning spear fast powerful but precise projectile, a fire spear could make a weaker but bigger explosion radius fireball, and then swords, hammers, claymores, bows, etc would all do completely different types of things when combined with the different elements.
THEN when you've used your final special throw move because it's lost its sharpness you get the basic lightning spell back and it's ready to combine with the next weapon you find and until then you still at least have the basic ability.
You could even make it so there's some kind of trade off where when it's on your weapons you don't have the normal spell anymore like if there was a wind spell that let you hover over small holes you wouldn't want to get rid of that spell just to get a strong weapon in a boss room with tons of holes in the area. Then maybe the player would want to go with a less effective element against this specific enemy to keep the puzzle related abilities that help in that room, or like a light spell wouldn't let you make a light anymore to see in a dark room boss like the one you made. The more general overworld uses the uncombined powerups you get have the more trade-offs the player would have to consider of what weapons to bring to a boss. Some could give a better dodge, a one time shield, a buff to varying stats, visibility, immunity to status effects etc. I think this would make it feel more like what you want where the player is CHOOSING when to lose their cool weapon and still allows them to get a similarly cool one back fairly easily when they are ready.
You would just then have to balance them really well to make sure one isn't the clearly best weapon always.
Maybe to repair or recharge the weapons or gear would require different things to do that. Like, a magical staff would require finding magic stones to power it up, and swords would require a smithy to fix and collecting metals. You could also do things like improving efficiency or durability to make less trips in the end game, Idk, depends how deep you like your game to get into that kind of stuff. Looking cool, nice work!
I think a lot of devs don't realize that gameplay variety comes far more from interesting enemies - the kind that require a specific solution to defeat, like learning enemy patterns in a Souls game, or figuring out the puzzle for a Zelda enemy - than weapon variety. You could have one singular main weapon with only a few attacks (Ocarina of Time) but the combat never gets stale because the enemies always keep things interesting.
Maybe simpler items like torches shouldn't be full blown flamethrowers like what you showed, but rather ONLY a throwable (and of course deal fire damage etc. etc.)
The issue with weapon breakage in BotW/TotK is that doesn't effect gameplay in any positive way. Players have a particular way they want to play so they just stockpile multiples of the same weapon or they maintain a small selection for speicifc uses and keep visiting Rocktoroks to repair them. All Nintendo did was create grind and davalue rare loot because players knew anything they'd find will just break after a few dozen uses. Rare items therefore ended up sitting in trophy stands for fear they'd be accidently destroyed.
Combat variety therefore has to be defined by restrictions on the player which change. These changes should be not only telegraphed but also something the player can bypass to prevent frustration. One example of this is FF13 whereby enemies were very resistant to damage until you achieved a Limit Break. The two types of attack functioned differently, physical attacks did damage but barely rqised the limit break meter while magic attacks raised the meter but did little damage. On top of this certain enemies were resistant to physical or magical attacks meaning the player had to decide if they'd attempt to push for a limit break or if they'd buff themselves to just apply overwhelming physical attacks. This forced the player to not only make tacical choices but also use all of their skills. For your game a "stun" could be applied when using physical attacks that make them vulnerable to a magic attack that has to be charged. Then added elemental immunities so that players are forced to match the correct magic element.
The alternative is to create combo systems whereby a damage modifier is applied to each subsequent attack in a chain when a combo is started. As you know this has formed the backbone of titles like Street Fighter and started off by being an unintended benefit of animation cancelling in the early arcade games since certain abilities would override the animation of another thereby reducing their length. For your game it could be something as simple as two sword swings ending with a wide swing of a spear that pushes you away from the target but allows for a rapidly charged spear throw or a running charge attack to move back into close range.
I believe other people have already described it better, but the idea of turning that “Charge” into a level of “Sharpness” is also interesting. If you want certain examples, Monster Hunter has a weapon sharpness system which determines the overall effectiveness of most weapons, divided in different degrees determined by a bar.
In essence, if you keep constantly using weapons, you’ll lose the sharpness of them, up until they’re less effective, so you can either keep them in hand to repair them later (allowing players to keep using weapons they like), or throw them away to change up to something else.
I hit a jellyfish with a torch and the game crashed. It was a normal hit, not a throw if that makes any difference.
The weapons feel great so far, only complaint being a lack of a 'charge up icon' to indicate that trying to throw a weapon takes a bit of a delay. If the tutorial says this, I kind of skipped it by going through the water at the start, which I thought wouldn't work lol. As for if they should break, maybe they get a few hits after their yellow bar runs out?
Another little thing, changing your color when you're holding an item (rock/pot) results in the red outfit's head displaying without a body, except for when facing up, which will show the chosen color properly.
I’ve Alwase wanted to make top down fighting game like you have what software do you use?
I think the weapons are a great idea, I just wonder what if there might be other ways to incentivize weapon choice besides breaking them. Giving weapons different properties, damage types, or special attacks might be a better incentive here. I'm reminded of the Megaman system, where bosses and enemies have different weaknesses so players that are trying to play efficiently are forced into using different weapon types.
If weapons had special attacks maybe they only recharge their energy to do so when it's not currently in use, so it incentives switching weapons to get higher damage and better flexibility. In this system I think weapons would be permanent and couldn't break though.
But great work! And I've been excited to continue seeing this project get done.
On the topic of positive incentive, what if instead of having every new weapon fully charged, every new weapon is "uncharged"? And with every hit, it slowly charges. And when it's charged, you can use a super attack that's so powerful that it destroys the weapon. So instead of "being done" with a weapon after you used all its magic, you trigger it when it's ready to do something cool.
You're not throwing it when it's depleated, you fire it when it's ready.
when throwing a weapon. if its full on charge. then why not do extra damage up to a threshold ? for example if it does 10 damage per hit when having charges. then when you throw it at full charge. you should do 20.. and remove 20% per charge hit , with the lowest point being Base Damage + 20% (as an idea. you dont have to do anything like that)
That is an awesome System. I always hate it when a Weapon breaks in games when i have grow to it... this way, you keep and play with it. Nice! Maybe a way to 'recharge' or sharpen it back up would be nice. Good job!
Hey man love your content!
I might be little late here and maybe you are already done with this problem, but to make player use different weapons I think it would be good idea to add another weapon system like give already existing weapons one more characteristic and make some enemies immune to this characteristic. Kinda like god of war had ice type enemies which was immune to leviathan axe. Wish you best of luck!
Hello, I am an aspiring game developer in my senior year trying to get a jumpstart on my career. I have an independent study class with a teacher who is workong hard with me to get something going. I have no coding knowledge but im starting courses for C++ as my language of choice and Godot as my engine for starters. I would love if you could give me any feedback on how you started out and got to the point where you are now? What are some free courses, tools, tricks, or things to do that could elevate my skill and experience in the world of game dev?
The name for the “weapon charge system” should be Calle the “Beginner’s Luck” system because you just got a new weapon and you get lucky with the first few strikes. But this means you need to add an inventory system so that if you wnat to keep beginners luck, you can switch to another weapon.
Most of the weapons in Breath/Tears function identically. I'm convinced durability stands mainly as a reward, then as soft level scaling (based on inventory size), and lastly as a means for variety.
I know nobody else would really like this idea, but there should be a small shield and dagger class. The dagger could be shorter range, but it could either stun the enemy, or do extra damage or piercing, like causing enemies' armour to break quicker (if armor is in the game, this is my first time watching your channel.) (: