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Ways to visualise battle results?

Started by lerno May 30, 2016 at 12:10 PM 9 replies 5.1k views

Original Post

May 30, 2016 at 12:10 PM

Our game has a very simple combat resolution. Roughly, attacking with an army of X against an army of Y units and being victorious you'll lose Y units (and if the opponent is stronger, the enemy will lose X).

(e.g. attack with 320 against an army of 50 and you'll loose 50 units)

– So by design combat is extremely predictable and straightforward.

At the same time, combat is a rather rare occurrence and is something that should feel "special". So the question is how to visualise it.

Looking at other games there's the "Animated armies battling it out" style, and "Card game style" (with "cards" alternating taking damage).

"Animated armies" feels a bit wrong for our game, since you mostly only have a single army type (and honestly it needs to look very good not to feel corny).

I tried the "card game" approach, with the army "card" taking damage, but it was rather boring - again because each side usually has a single army type.

There's the original "Pirates!" approach where the amounts for each side is slowly ticking down until one side defeated, but I don't know if that is interesting enough.

What possibilities am I overlooking? Adding too complex a screen will be a bit weird as the battle is straightforward. But I don't just want to throw up the popup with the result.

kburkhart84

May 30, 2016 at 4:43 PM

Do you somehow know beforehand how many units are in the army you are attacking? If not, then your animation could somehow accentuate that number, making it a big deal, being different depending on which team has the higher number, and how big the difference is.

For example, the game Magi before a given battle was able to determine which magi was stronger(by stats though), and showed a sort of electric orb between the two going towards the weaker one, and the weaker that one was, the closer the orb got to him/her, kind of like the energy waves in Dragon Ball Z. Of course this doesn't fit your game's style, but maybe come up with something similar that does fit.

Also, one thing that comes to mind, is the automated battles in C&C3. It has a game mode where you deploy whole groups of units. In this case, there are wide varieties of units though, but maybe find a video of it in action to see how it works. It does some little animations, and shows the units "thumbshots/avatars" getting Xed out, with energy bars going down too. It also does some battle sounds to go with it. Maybe since you have only 1 unit type, you just have a single avatar or multiple ones representing the same type of soldier, but you do something similar.

lerno

May 31, 2016 at 1:12 PM

Do you somehow know beforehand how many units are in the army you are attacking? If not, then your animation could somehow accentuate that number, making it a big deal, being different depending on which team has the higher number, and how big the difference is.

No, the battle is extremely predictable (which is a fundamental game decision in the game) and you know all about your opponent. There is a tiny variance in efficiency from battle to battle, but it is hardly noticeable.

Do you have a video link to those automated battles in C&C3? I could not find anything.

Kryzon

May 31, 2016 at 11:17 PM

What is the visual style of the game? It's difficult to suggest anything without knowing the mood of the game.

kburkhart84

Jun 1, 2016 at 3:43 AM

This youtube video is what I could find. It actually skips it, but you can get at least a couple of seconds worth before the skips. It happens plenty of times in the video, but I think they all get skimmed over for brevity. I made the link be right at the time where one starts though.

lerno

Jun 1, 2016 at 2:26 PM

What is the visual style of the game? It's difficult to suggest anything without knowing the mood of the game.

In what sense? It's a fantasy RPG/Strategy if that helps?

lerno

Jun 1, 2016 at 2:28 PM

This youtube video is what I could find. It actually skips it, but you can get at least a couple of seconds worth before the skips. It happens plenty of times in the video, but I think they all get skimmed over for brevity. I made the link be right at the time where one starts though.

That is similar to what I tried, but it doesn't appear to work very well visually with (mostly) a single army type on each side.

Kryzon

Jun 2, 2016 at 1:33 AM

In what sense? It's a fantasy RPG/Strategy if that helps?

In the visual sense, like screenshots or a video of what you already have.

Alberth

Jun 7, 2016 at 4:00 AM

maybe not concentrate on the war but rather on the result?

When you win, you gain new grounds with resources, so what did I get?

When you loose, lives are lost (not that interesting perhaps), but does that have economic impact, less production, or need to replenish the army?

Perhaps a great warrior died or got wounded?

lerno

Jun 15, 2016 at 10:10 AM

In the visual sense, like screenshots or a video of what you already have.

Here is the "buy army" screen...

lerno

Jun 15, 2016 at 10:13 AM

maybe not concentrate on the war but rather on the result?

When you win, you gain new grounds with resources, so what did I get?
When you loose, lives are lost (not that interesting perhaps), but does that have economic impact, less production, or need to replenish the army?

Perhaps a great warrior died or got wounded?

Winning the battle possibly captures the opponent, or the opponent simply loses the army and escapes. It's used to kill other player's characters.

There is also a battle against border armies and strongholds. These also simply annihilate the defense allowing you to pass through the area or take the stronghold. Note that this is a separate action though. You might simply defeat the castle army and choose *not* to seize it.

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