Sat, Oct 4th 2008, 10:31
Polling Place
Sat, Oct 4th 2008, 10:31
Visually, there's virtually no difference, so no screens this week.
Most of the changes are on the AI behavior and improving the class
hierarchy.
I'd like to request some community feedback. Assume a classic
space shmup setup where the player is a lone ship avoiding /
destroying hordes of incoming stuff. Now, to defend your planets
from this cruel and merciless attacker, you can upgrade your
defenses.
This is currently set up such that there are six different unit
types, each with three adjustable "primary attributes".
As a primary attribute is adjusted, it affects several derived
"secondary attributes".
So, my questions to you, dear viewers are:
* Will six different enemy types provide enough variety?
* Do three different primary attributes offer enough flexibility?
* This makes for a total of 18 adjustments that must be made for
each planet. Is this too many to comfortably manage?
My thoughts regarding variety and flexibility:
Consider each attribute as being a strictly on or off proposition.
This means there would be seven different states for each enemy
type, yielding 42 distinct enemy varieties. (Note: the attributes will
not be a simple on/off; I'm just using this simplification to
help frame it.)
My thoughts regarding the complexity issue:
I originally had each and every independent attribute adjustable.
This offered a lot of opportunity for experimentation and creative
combinations. That that meant setting several dozen independent
attributes every time you won a 2-5 minute battle, or when wanted
to tinker with your existing defenses. So it has since been distilled
down to three. I've considered the consequences of taking it further.
It would be hard to break it down into two logical attributes, so I
think if it were to go any lower, it would have to be taken to a
single attribute per enemy and just call it "level". This seems
incredibly unexciting, though.
I think that's a fair summation of how things stand. Provided there
are no last minute sweeping changes, the core combat should be done
next week. Comments of any variety will be very much appreciated.
