This is a mobile game where players build and level their unique character with stat points, abilities, ability upgrades etc.(your traditional RPG character building concept here). Most of the leveling will come from fighting other players characters in a 1on1 fight. The whole point of the game is to be the best with leaderboards and losing/gaining trophies depending if you lose/win moving you up and down the leaderboards. I wouldn't quite call it a turn based rpg, but it has a similar feel. Anyways here is where I believe the problem will be...

When you search for a player to fight, it's clash of clans style where you're searching for a player that is offline and you fight his character that is played by an AI system.

What I need is a better system for players to leave their characters better prepared so they have some kind of influence in the defensive fights their not playing when their offline.

Aside from putting skill points in stat lines, and picking from a few abilities and leveling them, there isn't much else a player has to do before he goes offline besides making sure his character is at full health.

In CoC you have the whole aspect of setting up your base in completely different defensive templates, with traps, and making sure some of your defense towers are full on ammo. I feel my game lacks some of this defensive strategy.

Each character will have his own little home so to speak that it resides in and will fight in when attacked. So I could use this to allow certain housing items like decorations or something provide some kind of boost for fighting.

Any other clever ideas?

You can always let the player pick some strategic options for his AI, but this will depend on how the actual fighting happens.

Another option is to allow players to defend each other/their friends/alliance; if one is attacked his friends have the option to fight for him.

But i suppose it 'll be more fun for the players to counter-attack who attacks their friends.

The fighting has 3 stances (offensive, passive, defensive) that you can move your character to throughout the fight for added in fight bonuses like: slightly better defense stats, more offense stats etc..

So I could have them select which stance they prefer their character to fight out of most often.

Another option is to allow players to defend each other/their friends/alliance; if one is attacked his friends have the option to fight for him.

But i suppose it 'll be more fun for the players to counter-attack who attacks their friends.

Ya I could do this by rewarding a slightly higher trophy count if you seek revenge from a loss and win. I'd have to becareful letting friends/clan members do the revenge incase they're highly over leveled compared to the opponent.

In terms of having a friend/clan member actually intercept a fight and have their character fight for them, again this would have to be kept within a close level of each other, but there would also have to be a reason as to why a friend/clan members character would fight for you instead.

but there would also have to be a reason as to why a friend/clan members character would fight for you instead.

It's a game, if there s a smooth feature implemented, gamers will try it out and enjoy it if they enjoy the rest of the game.

A successful F2P I was involved with circumvented this issue by only scoring offensive fights. Thus, fights only mattered for the player that instigated the fight (all defensive stats were ignored).

The downside is that the top players had very good player skills (very good offense) but could be farmed for wins (because their defenses made no sense).

For example, if your character is a glass cannon and you know how to use it, you'll win a lot. But defensively, the slightest AI shortcoming will mean you'll lose a lot defensively.

The player should never be penalized by the game's own limitations (poor AI).

You mentioned similar to turn-based. Can you do Asynchronous combat?

You mentioned similar to turn-based. Can you do Asynchronous combat?

It's not turn based, your characters abilities have different global cooldowns so you can only use 1 ability at a time but can spam them as fast as your cooldowns. The opponent can use an ability at the same time as you.

It is asynchronous in the sense that most of the abilities that apply damage will have a 1-2 second animation so you have that bit of time to throw up a shield, parry, counter-attack etc...

A successful F2P I was involved with circumvented this issue by only scoring offensive fights. Thus, fights only mattered for the player that instigated the fight (all defensive stats were ignored).

The downside is that the top players had very good player skills (very good offense) but could be farmed for wins (because their defenses made no sense).

For example, if your character is a glass cannon and you know how to use it, you'll win a lot. But defensively, the slightest AI shortcoming will mean you'll lose a lot defensively.

The player should never be penalized by the game's own limitations (poor AI).

I can't imagine a failed defensive fight having no consequence working for my game. As you mentioned this would lead to leaderboard manipulation and removes an entire aspect of the game I've wanted from the get go. I play CoC strictly to defend, I find the attacking too tedious (probably cause I always fail). Anyways, I want to offer players a similar situation where there is a fair bit they can do to leave their character better prepared to defend with lots of variable options, which is why I'm here

I always assumed from the GDD stage that the AI would never be as good as some of the better players, so to counter-attack this the original plan was to allow home field advantage. When you're defending it's always out of your own base, so depending what items you've bought and upgraded for your base, these can give you added bonuses to stats/abilities or might even assist you in attacking. This would obviously need to be closely balanced where it's not too much of an advantage against weaker players, but still not too easy for advanced players.

For example, if your character is a glass cannon and you know how to use it, you'll win a lot. But defensively, the slightest AI shortcoming will mean you'll lose a lot defensively

Then give greater rewards for winning defensive fights.

Then give greater rewards for winning defensive fights.

Ya will probably have to do something like this as well where you will win more and lose less for defensive fights.