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 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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❤
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.
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
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
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!"
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.
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.
I just found your channel, and as someone who wants to pursue game dev, you actually really inspire me, so thank you. also you should add items that extend weapon charge for certain types of weapons that way if someone really likes a certain type of weapon they don't have to switch as often.
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.
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!
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.
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?
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 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 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
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.
You could potentially add in weapon techniques that are learned over the course of the game that apply to each weapon type you could find- so a spear master could train you on how to use spears more effectively and give you a new move or passive benefit while you're using one by giving you a training scroll in exchange for some money or a side quest. Some of these scrolls could also have applications in puzzles, too. Each weapon type shouldn't have too many of these scrolls. Going with the Tears of the Kingdom comparison, you could also potentially allow the player to apply extra effects to their weapons by combining them with another non-weapon object they find, which can be useful to apply elemental damage to a weapon or to give it bonus properties such as dealing more damage when thrown.
This seems like a really good mechanic and a solid saw to bring some variety into the fights! I think another really good way to incentivise players to throw their weapons, and even pick them up and use them in the first place, would be to make the final throw of a weapon deal a much larger chunk of damage/stun an enemy in some way, (obviously scaled based on the type of weapon thrown and their availability.) This would make finding a throwable weapon at the right time feel a lot more powerful and exciting, and give the player a reason to throw away weapons that didn't feel like a punishment because it became less effective, but like they are spending an ability. This could be compacted by making the thrown damage even greater for weapons that are in the last 10% of their charge, so that the player is incentivised to use the weapon normally for a little bit before throwing it, to get the maximum effect. This could lead to very interesting weapons, where the actual attack damage of the weapon is sustainably lower than the base sword, but the thrown damage is massive if it is in that final zone before breaking, leading to players picking up a weapon mid-fight that disadvantages them for a short while, so that they can get the payoff of the throw in order to deal a whole lot more damage. Or temporarily running away from weaker enemies because they are saving their powerful throw for a larger boss and don't want to waste it. It could also play in fun ways with making explicitly ranged bosses that can generate minions, where you would use the minions to drain the throwable weapons until they were ready to deal maximum damage, and then use the throws on the main boss to take away chunks of it's health at a time.
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.
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.
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!
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.
It's really clever to have those torches do more damage against the boss but once it's depleted you lose some visibility in the room. Gives the player pros and cons to different approaches. Looks like a cool game :)
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.
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?
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.
One way of doing a compromise would be to have the weapon enter a broken state. For example, when a weapon has no charge left, it can still be used, but with attack speed and damage reduced quite a bit. Then, you could have a forge to repair said weapons. With this, it would encourage players to use different weapons when entering a battle area without having them loose their favorite weapons since they can go repair it after.
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
Thank you for implementing my idea of combat! It would be great to have two types of weaponry though. What I mean with that is that you can get permanent weapons which are in your inventory forever and the temporary weapons which have the abilities you showed in the video. I also think that you could update magic wands by implementing a new menu and a new item: elementary gems. When equipping a magic wand, this wand has a special gem dedicated to it like the lightning gem for example. If you dont want that wand to have the lightning element, you can just go to that new menu, unequip the gem for that wand and put another gem obtainable in another region of the map onto the wand to switch its element. If possible, it would be even better if you could make these gems a throwable object when equipping them in the inventory. When thrown, they cast a high damage burst to their dedicated element. I think that is enough for suggestions from my side because this is your masterpiece you're working on. Im already looking forward to the next update of the game!
you allready have everything in place: Let me tell you what I see- Bossfight -> Weapons to pick are placed around the arena, boss goes out of range of the sword -> you start pickinng up and throwing it. so you can deal real damag with your sword.
My favorite method of incentivise weapon change is by far by weapon effectivines, the best exemple that i have is borderlands, were you elemental stats on weapons that have a more specific porpuse , fire is effective against bare skin enemys, while eletricity is effective against shields, shootguns give a lot of damage and a nice wide range making a good choise for dealing with small enemys that attack from close distance but rifles are better for enemys that attack from medium distances and etc.
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.
I feel like that you should have a "set weapon" which is always blunt but that you can choose and switch whenever then side weapons which lose bluntness overtime, and make it so that each weapon has perks over the other, axes deal more damage, swords are fast swingers, lances have extra range, etc
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.
If your still taking ideas I recommend adding a sort of execution time period where after dealing enough damage to an enemy they start to blink and if a player throws there weapon at them it causes the enemy to explode damaging surrounding enemies and supply’s the player with a bit more gold than if they threw it any other time. This encourages the player to throw there weapon when the opportunity presents itself without making it feel like your forcing them to do so
The weapon charge system feels like a really good idea if you have the ability to swap between them. It shares similarities with Ultrakill's style system. Possibly the player has a limit to how many weapons can be held if there's no durability. If there is durability then to make it work an abundance of weapons is usually needed.
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.
I like the way soul knught does it where different weapons take yo different qmounts of energy, with the basic ones tlaing up none and the super missiels taking up 100+ but kill everything on screen
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?
When the eye ball boss gets to really low HP it should close it's eye and then it no longer emits it's own light in the dark, meaning you need to track it based on previous movements / moving cautiously to avoid it's attack then hurt it
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
Another feature you could use for the lightning rod could be a paralyzing effect, where the enemies slow down after struck with it. Similar to the torch in which enemies catch fire.
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)
In my open world game, I allow the player full freedom giving the player the choice of what boss to attack first. I have each of my weapons completely different from each other, with each weapon creating unique combat strategies, which I use to strategically design the enemies around, (giving them their strengths and weaknesses according to what weapon the player will use) thus making the fight different for each weapon. I place each of these weapons somewhere throughout the world and only allow the player to have one at a time, forcing the player to swap out weapons for the new one (if they want to use it). That way the player can strategies where to go first and what bosses to attack in what order with what weapon. I personally hate making the weapon feel like a disposable plate.
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.
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 think it could be fun if some of your enemies projectiles could be used as a weapon as well like an enemie throwing something at you that you have to dodge and if you are faster than the enemie in picking it back up you can throw it back at them.
There should be enemies that drop the weapon they’re holding when they die, that way it’d be easy for bosses to be designed to give you a constant supply of weapons, you just need to have them spawn enemies
I've just played some of the demo! I love it 😄 I'm sure you may already know this, but in your demo, if you change cloak colours, the body disappears when you pick up items (I chose the orange cloak, and when I picked up something it only shows the character's head).
Maybe for the Electric boss, you could add an electrified state to metallic weapons, so the player takes damage if they hit it with a sword, encouraging them to throw it (which could bounce off so it can be picked up) or to try using weaker wooden weapons?
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.
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!
I personally hated the fact of having to keep an entire inventory of extra weapons so when yours breaks you have back ups. I do like the idea of the durability characteristic. Would there be an option to repair a weapon? Bring the durability bar back up? The way I see the game currently you would have to add a lot of usable objects around the map as extra “weapons.” Would add some so the lightning boss room. Maybe rocks you can hide behind to dodge attacks but also pick up and throw. Game looks awesome. Can’t wait to see more.
I'd do the opposite. Everytime you hit the bar increases and once it's full you can do a special move/throw that either does more damage or has other effects, like throwing multiple spears, or the sword flies around you in an arc etc.
You could (and I know this might take a decent bit of effort to impliment) give enemies weaknesses to certain weapon types or damage types. That way the player is encouraged to experiment a bit and find what weapon works best for what enemy.
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
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 :)
My suggestion: Add a way to repair weapons at points (Maybe with a grindstone to sharpen them again?) and allow players to carry 2 weapons at once they can switch between. This way if a player finds their personal favourite weapons, they are not forced to loose it, instead being albe to hold onto it while using a different weapon until they can repair it again.
Hi love the series, the game looks great! just wondering, how did you make the weapons bob up and down with the player even tough I'm assuming their different game objects?
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
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?
I think this is a very solid and fun idea. I personally wish that throwing a weapon does extra damage to further encourage it. I can see my self roling around using weapons and throwing them at enemies.
I definitely think your weapon crack mechanic is great. Just played the demo and I actually found myself swapping and testing out weapons more frequently than I would have, if it didn't drop anything or add extra damage. I feel it should give you a ressource instead of money though, as I just farmed money in town and broke all of the training guys weapons until I got the lantern. So let it drop a fitting ressource instead, e.g. a staff would drop wood, a sword drops metal shards, etc. Then, if you want to upgrade a weapons sharpness/durability/damage upon pickup, you can use your "enhance weapon spell" and spent the 10 metal you collected earlier and select a perk. More durability, more damage, extra charge, wider aoe, added fire damage. Something you can learn the skills to in the world, just to mix stuff up. But you can never hold more than a certain amount e.g. 10 metal at once and also just upgrade once. So you can spent it if you think it's the right time to upgrade your weapon for a bossfight or to cut through a tree that blocks the way that needs an extra sharp axe, etc. But with the ressource stack capped, as well as weapon upgrades maxed to one, you would use it tactically and also wouldnt run around and break everything all the time, just to farm ressource stacks to 999. Also, love the visuals and animations already. Game looks cute.
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...
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!
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 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 think each weapon should offer a new way to play. A spear should have more reach than a great sword but maybe survive being thrown until the meter is down? A great sword can do more damage but only throws a few feet and hits the ground. Then you could add things like a round shield that aren’t the best weapon but reduce incoming damage and can be thrown too.
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 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.
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.
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
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 think the name “Hood” would sound good sense it describes the characters design and just sounds cool!
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 torches making the boss catch on fire, which lights it up, is a nice touch :D
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!
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.
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
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
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!"
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.
I think the route you are going with this is very good sounding!
Really love the look of this! The game design around combat is looking nice :D
Honestly, the weapon charge mechanic is a really good idea in my opinion!
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.
I just found your channel, and as someone who wants to pursue game dev, you actually really inspire me, so thank you. also you should add items that extend weapon charge for certain types of weapons that way if someone really likes a certain type of weapon they don't have to switch as often.
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.
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!
im in lack of time to get into programming but seing your devlogs litterly making my dream like game makes my day, keep it up
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.
I think a good name for it would be something like "shinnyness", it's what popped into my head when you talked about it
i love this. its unique, and its both fun for people who dont really like switching and people who do.
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?
this game looks so awesome i love this art style and everything ill definitely buy when it comes out!!!
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 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 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
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.
You could potentially add in weapon techniques that are learned over the course of the game that apply to each weapon type you could find- so a spear master could train you on how to use spears more effectively and give you a new move or passive benefit while you're using one by giving you a training scroll in exchange for some money or a side quest. Some of these scrolls could also have applications in puzzles, too. Each weapon type shouldn't have too many of these scrolls.
Going with the Tears of the Kingdom comparison, you could also potentially allow the player to apply extra effects to their weapons by combining them with another non-weapon object they find, which can be useful to apply elemental damage to a weapon or to give it bonus properties such as dealing more damage when thrown.
This seems like a really good mechanic and a solid saw to bring some variety into the fights!
I think another really good way to incentivise players to throw their weapons, and even pick them up and use them in the first place, would be to make the final throw of a weapon deal a much larger chunk of damage/stun an enemy in some way, (obviously scaled based on the type of weapon thrown and their availability.)
This would make finding a throwable weapon at the right time feel a lot more powerful and exciting, and give the player a reason to throw away weapons that didn't feel like a punishment because it became less effective, but like they are spending an ability. This could be compacted by making the thrown damage even greater for weapons that are in the last 10% of their charge, so that the player is incentivised to use the weapon normally for a little bit before throwing it, to get the maximum effect. This could lead to very interesting weapons, where the actual attack damage of the weapon is sustainably lower than the base sword, but the thrown damage is massive if it is in that final zone before breaking, leading to players picking up a weapon mid-fight that disadvantages them for a short while, so that they can get the payoff of the throw in order to deal a whole lot more damage. Or temporarily running away from weaker enemies because they are saving their powerful throw for a larger boss and don't want to waste it. It could also play in fun ways with making explicitly ranged bosses that can generate minions, where you would use the minions to drain the throwable weapons until they were ready to deal maximum damage, and then use the throws on the main boss to take away chunks of it's health at a time.
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.
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.
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!
Man i am learning a lot. Thanks for this videos
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.
It's really clever to have those torches do more damage against the boss but once it's depleted you lose some visibility in the room. Gives the player pros and cons to different approaches. Looks like a cool game :)
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?
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?
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.
At first I was like I wouldn't like the idea but when I saw the charge feature and they don't actually break I love it
One way of doing a compromise would be to have the weapon enter a broken state. For example, when a weapon has no charge left, it can still be used, but with attack speed and damage reduced quite a bit. Then, you could have a forge to repair said weapons. With this, it would encourage players to use different weapons when entering a battle area without having them loose their favorite weapons since they can go repair it after.
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
Thank you for implementing my idea of combat! It would be great to have two types of weaponry though. What I mean with that is that you can get permanent weapons which are in your inventory forever and the temporary weapons which have the abilities you showed in the video. I also think that you could update magic wands by implementing a new menu and a new item: elementary gems. When equipping a magic wand, this wand has a special gem dedicated to it like the lightning gem for example. If you dont want that wand to have the lightning element, you can just go to that new menu, unequip the gem for that wand and put another gem obtainable in another region of the map onto the wand to switch its element. If possible, it would be even better if you could make these gems a throwable object when equipping them in the inventory. When thrown, they cast a high damage burst to their dedicated element. I think that is enough for suggestions from my side because this is your masterpiece you're working on. Im already looking forward to the next update of the game!
you allready have everything in place: Let me tell you what I see- Bossfight -> Weapons to pick are placed around the arena, boss goes out of range of the sword -> you start pickinng up and throwing it. so you can deal real damag with your sword.
My favorite method of incentivise weapon change is by far by weapon effectivines, the best exemple that i have is borderlands, were you elemental stats on weapons that have a more specific porpuse , fire is effective against bare skin enemys, while eletricity is effective against shields, shootguns give a lot of damage and a nice wide range making a good choise for dealing with small enemys that attack from close distance but rifles are better for enemys that attack from medium distances and etc.
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.
I recently joined your channel and your videos are so motivating for me to finally work seriously on my own game in pygame ❤
2nd
Also, great update, using only a sword does seem a bit boring, this was a good decision :)
I feel like that you should have a "set weapon" which is always blunt but that you can choose and switch whenever then side weapons which lose bluntness overtime, and make it so that each weapon has perks over the other, axes deal more damage, swords are fast swingers, lances have extra range, etc
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.
If your still taking ideas I recommend adding a sort of execution time period where after dealing enough damage to an enemy they start to blink and if a player throws there weapon at them it causes the enemy to explode damaging surrounding enemies and supply’s the player with a bit more gold than if they threw it any other time. This encourages the player to throw there weapon when the opportunity presents itself without making it feel like your forcing them to do so
You could have golden weapons level down when you use it and pay gold to level them up again for example.
The weapon charge system feels like a really good idea if you have the ability to swap between them. It shares similarities with Ultrakill's style system. Possibly the player has a limit to how many weapons can be held if there's no durability. If there is durability then to make it work an abundance of weapons is usually needed.
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).
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.
I like the way soul knught does it where different weapons take yo different qmounts of energy, with the basic ones tlaing up none and the super missiels taking up 100+ but kill everything on screen
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?
I think the charge idea is fantastic.
When the eye ball boss gets to really low HP it should close it's eye and then it no longer emits it's own light in the dark, meaning you need to track it based on previous movements / moving cautiously to avoid it's attack then hurt it
You should make monsters more resistent to certain damage types, these in turn would prepare you for the boss.
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
Another feature you could use for the lightning rod could be a paralyzing effect, where the enemies slow down after struck with it. Similar to the torch in which enemies catch fire.
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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In my open world game, I allow the player full freedom giving the player the choice of what boss to attack first. I have each of my weapons completely different from each other, with each weapon creating unique combat strategies, which I use to strategically design the enemies around, (giving them their strengths and weaknesses according to what weapon the player will use) thus making the fight different for each weapon. I place each of these weapons somewhere throughout the world and only allow the player to have one at a time, forcing the player to swap out weapons for the new one (if they want to use it). That way the player can strategies where to go first and what bosses to attack in what order with what weapon. I personally hate making the weapon feel like a disposable plate.
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.
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.
Cool devlogs and also thanks for your Monogame course. Can you add the devlogs to a playlist so we can easy watch the older ones?
I will do this today!
Exceptionally adorable play
i think it could be fun if some of your enemies projectiles could be used as a weapon as well like an enemie throwing something at you that you have to dodge and if you are faster than the enemie in picking it back up you can throw it back at them.
Wait I got an idea for the name: battle charge or adrenaline !
There should be enemies that drop the weapon they’re holding when they die, that way it’d be easy for bosses to be designed to give you a constant supply of weapons, you just need to have them spawn enemies
I've just played some of the demo! I love it 😄 I'm sure you may already know this, but in your demo, if you change cloak colours, the body disappears when you pick up items (I chose the orange cloak, and when I picked up something it only shows the character's head).
I released a new version (0.1.6a) that fixes a ton of bugs, including this one. Thank you for testing!!
Maybe for the Electric boss, you could add an electrified state to metallic weapons, so the player takes damage if they hit it with a sword, encouraging them to throw it (which could bounce off so it can be picked up) or to try using weaker wooden weapons?
Sharpness is what you should call the bar and add a Sharpnessning stone to increase their Sharpness
One thing you could do to encourage throwing is to ad aoe shrapnel
I love how the games doing bro!
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.
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!
I personally hated the fact of having to keep an entire inventory of extra weapons so when yours breaks you have back ups.
I do like the idea of the durability characteristic. Would there be an option to repair a weapon? Bring the durability bar back up?
The way I see the game currently you would have to add a lot of usable objects around the map as extra “weapons.”
Would add some so the lightning boss room. Maybe rocks you can hide behind to dodge attacks but also pick up and throw.
Game looks awesome. Can’t wait to see more.
I have a secret plan, where every save point will be able to spawn any weapon you want. I think this will help out a lot.
I'd do the opposite. Everytime you hit the bar increases and once it's full you can do a special move/throw that either does more damage or has other effects, like throwing multiple spears, or the sword flies around you in an arc etc.
You could (and I know this might take a decent bit of effort to impliment) give enemies weaknesses to certain weapon types or damage types. That way the player is encouraged to experiment a bit and find what weapon works best for what enemy.
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
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 :)
My suggestion:
Add a way to repair weapons at points (Maybe with a grindstone to sharpen them again?) and allow players to carry 2 weapons at once they can switch between.
This way if a player finds their personal favourite weapons, they are not forced to loose it, instead being albe to hold onto it while using a different weapon until they can repair it again.
Hi love the series, the game looks great! just wondering, how did you make the weapons bob up and down with the player even tough I'm assuming their different game objects?
They are different game objects, and I manually map the bob movement to each frame of the walking animation
@@Challacade thank you so much for the reply! Did you do it using unitys animator and if so how did you get instant movement between keyframes?
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
I love your game and the way you have to play i have so much fun
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?
I think this is a very solid and fun idea. I personally wish that throwing a weapon does extra damage to further encourage it. I can see my self roling around using weapons and throwing them at enemies.
I definitely think your weapon crack mechanic is great. Just played the demo and I actually found myself swapping and testing out weapons more frequently than I would have, if it didn't drop anything or add extra damage. I feel it should give you a ressource instead of money though, as I just farmed money in town and broke all of the training guys weapons until I got the lantern.
So let it drop a fitting ressource instead, e.g. a staff would drop wood, a sword drops metal shards, etc. Then, if you want to upgrade a weapons sharpness/durability/damage upon pickup, you can use your "enhance weapon spell" and spent the 10 metal you collected earlier and select a perk. More durability, more damage, extra charge, wider aoe, added fire damage. Something you can learn the skills to in the world, just to mix stuff up. But you can never hold more than a certain amount e.g. 10 metal at once and also just upgrade once. So you can spent it if you think it's the right time to upgrade your weapon for a bossfight or to cut through a tree that blocks the way that needs an extra sharp axe, etc. But with the ressource stack capped, as well as weapon upgrades maxed to one, you would use it tactically and also wouldnt run around and break everything all the time, just to farm ressource stacks to 999.
Also, love the visuals and animations already. Game looks cute.
Thank you for testing, and I appreciate your thoughtful feedback!
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...
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)
Electric boss's projextiles should electrify the water when they land, forcing the player on the square path
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!
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 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 think each weapon should offer a new way to play. A spear should have more reach than a great sword but maybe survive being thrown until the meter is down? A great sword can do more damage but only throws a few feet and hits the ground. Then you could add things like a round shield that aren’t the best weapon but reduce incoming damage and can be thrown too.