Hi, so in my game the objective usually is villages / fortresses that player needs to clear out. The current mechanic is as follows: buildings spawn enemies (different buildings spawn different types of enemies, some are stronger than others), and to clear a settlement, player has to either kill the entire population or destroy all buildings. The choice is affected by what skills player’s invested into (demolishing type or assassination).
So, obviously if a settlement has a population of 50, I can’t have all 50 enemies in play at once. Instead, there’s a limit of how many enemies can be alive per building. Let’s say that number is 5. So when I kill one, another spawns near the building (if there are any remaining “inside”), keeping their number less or equal to 5.
It looks bad. Even If the enemies spawned inside buildings and walked out of them, it would still look weird, like, “how many people are in this house?! why are they walking out instead of hiding?!” (player is a spooky skeleton, so it would make sense that people would only be inside buildings to hide, and not otherwise)
I’m trying to think of something that wouldn’t require me to change the rules and at the same time look convincing.
Ideas, please.
If they’re all outside, then there’s no incentive to destroying the buildings. By destroying buildings you keep enemies from spawning. Plus fighting a crowd of so many at once will probably be a bit overwhelming.
I think it would make sense if they fled from town after their house got destroyed (like they got nothing more to protect xD)
So everyone starts spawned, outside, in appropriate numbers (let’s say 30 enemies in a small town), and as you destroy buildings, more and more of them start fleeing outside map borders (like in mount & blade)
Using your example, if the settlement has a total population of 50, that means the player has to kill 50 enemies to clear the level, correct? So wouldn’t the player just hang out near a building that spawns the weakest enemies and burn through them as quickly as possible?
Similar to BoredMormon’s suggestion, I’d pre-assign the total number of enemies each building can spawn. This confers at least two benefits. First, the player will be forced to deal with all the enemies in the level – they won’t be able to skew it to the easier enemies by camping near an easy building until they’ve cleared 50 (or as close as they can get “farming” the easy guys first). Second, there is a limited period of time in which demolishing the building is a worthwhile option – it sounds like that’s a “nuclear option” which eliminates a lot of enemies at once. Once the building has spawned its maximum count, then it’s pointless to waste time destroying it, the player missed their chance to go nuclear for a big advantage.
When a building is destroyed and it still has active occupants running around outside, it could easily and cheaply spice up the gameplay by adding a variety of reactions. Different types of enemies could have a different response – some flee, some continue fighting (maybe more aggressively), maybe some turn defensive and only attack if attacked. Heck, maybe some even attack other enemies. It seems like this part of it lets you add some pretty interesting behaviors without a lot of effort.
It also sounds like it’s important to make it clear which buildings correspond to each type of enemy…
I think i did mention that each building spawns its own type of enemies, and there’s a limit to how many enemies there are in a building. E.g. church will spawn priests, that are unarmed and can make desecrated lands sacred again.
“Can be alive per building” sounds different from the total number the building can spawn during the entire level.
“Alive per building” sounds like if there are 5 enemies running around from building A, and the player kills two, building A generates two more so that there are always 5 of them running around. No matter how many the player kills, building A will always be spawning more so that 5 are active. Did I misunderstand?
BoredMormon and I were proposing that building A can generate, say, 10 enemies during the course of the entire level, then it stops spawning. I’m guessing you’d probably still want to also limit how many are active.
Yes, there’s maximum total of how many a building can generate and how many can be alive at once. I’m thinking to change that though. I think it’d make levels more challenging if buildings generated infinite number of enemies (still with a limit to the number of alive ones), and also give player infinite number of respawns, as long as he’s got desecrated territory to spawn on.
Infinite spawns are a common design choice. The player then has to take out the main building to stop the spawns.
One thing to watch with this approach is it can majorly mess up the difficulty curve. Many games that employ this mechanic are notorious for being hard to start and easy to finish. The ideal curve is easy to start and hard to finish.
Super props if you go the AI Wars route, and tie the spawn rate to the number of buildings destroyed. Meaning the player has to strategically choose which buildings to destroy. It also elegantly solves the difficulty curve.
(I reply quick cause i check all my inboxes very often, I’m working on the game right now, i swear xD)
Yeah, difficulty ain’t an issue with my system. Buildings and enemies they spawn will be tougher as player progresses through the game. Skills can be purchased only on in-between-missions screen now, giving player the incentive to finish the mission, get new abilities, and then start the next one to try them out.
Two weeks, here! That pesky Real Life thing getting in the way.
@HellSpawnGames … something I don’t understand is that you describe two ways to beat a level: destroy all the buildings or destroy all the enemies, but infinite respawn seems to eliminate the possibility of destroying all the enemies. Or is the player sufficiently powerful that sometimes they can wipe out all the active enemies at once, and that’s a win (maybe it only respawns as long as other enemies are still active)?
I suppose it’s difficult to offer ideas or advice without knowing the game in more detail.
@MV10 oops my logic failed there, ofc there’s no way to kill all enemies if they’re infinite, idk what I was thinking xD I’m just focused on something else atm (skill tree, namely) and was not putting much thought into what I was saying
