Castle Paradox

[Ronin Catholic]

How's this idea for a game design?

The Damage Cap is 1. Do you realise what this would mean?

Attack and Defense would become less valued; Attack's only purpose would be to ensure 1 point of damage on hits more often, and Defense would be used to reduce damage to 0 from more hits.

Extra Hits and attacks with multiple hits would become more valued than they already are.

HP levels would probably be dropped considerably(for both heroes and enemies; high HP in a game like this would become very boring very quickly).

Regen would suddenly become as useful as, or even more useful than, normal healing.


Anyone else have anything to add to this? Would you make a game of this kind? Would you play a game with a system like this if I made it?
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"I didn't start the flame war;
I don't know what you thought here
'Twas that way when I got here"

"I didn't start the flame war;
I can't understand a word you're saying
nor the game you're playing~"

[RedNyteWulff]

While a damage cap of one is interesting, I think it would be better to simply make the damage cap a higher number(say, 5, maybe?) and then make Attack upgrades rare, and Defense upgrades rarer.
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[Rya.Reisender]

I thought of this some years ago already, however I wanted to remove Atj / Def completely and only rely on Accuracy / Dodge. And HP is considered as 'Lifes'.
However downside of this is that the game would rely too much on luck.
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Snippy:
"curt or sharp, esp. in a condescending way" (Oxford American Dictionary)
"fault-finding, snappish, sharp" (Concise Oxford Dictionary, UK)
1. short-tempered, snappish, 2. unduly brief or curt (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

[FnrrfYgmSchnish]

Well, in Paper Mario pretty much every attack did single-digit damage, and the highest HP that any enemy in the game had was 99 (I'm pretty sure 99 was the cap for Mario's HP, too, though it actually might have been lower... it's been a while since I've played the game.)

So a low-damage game can definitely be done, and if it's done right it can definitely make a good game.

The problem would be doing it right--"damage can only be 0 or 1" sounds like overdoing it a bit.

[Newbie_Power]

Yeah. I agree with Blubber. You just have to do it right.

Zelda 1 & ALttP are examples where it was done right: Weapon upgrades translated to one extra attack point, and they were very significant upgrades that helped against tough enemies (oh gosh, Darknuts!), as well as armor upgrades that practically tripled your HP with your Red Tunic, and both games didn't give you your Red Tunic until towards the end so you were still taking a decent damage per mistake for most of the way.
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TheGiz> Am I the only one who likes to imagine that Elijah Wood's character in Back to the Future 2, the kid at the Wild Gunman machine in the Cafe 80's, is some future descendant of the AVGN?

[Rimudora]

heerz another thought. wut about a gaem with an hp cap of oen? (lol crazy am i rite? lmao)

What this would mean is that basically more of the game would be aimed around getting into a position to attack rather than actually deciding what attack to use. You can see this in some action games like "I Wanna Be The Guy" or the sidescrolling Mario games (though Mario arguably has a max hp of 2-3), so it'd probably be interesting to think of ways this could fit into an RPG battle as well.

[Newbie_Power]

[Rya.Reisender]

Well the "low max hp" idea is a bit different from "let the damage be either 0 or 1" gameplay wise.

A low hp maximum makes it a lot easier to balance out the game, so it'll always be a good idea for amateur game designers that usually have problem with creating a good difficulty balance.

High max HP is actually considered better by many gamers. There are many that like Disgaea because max level is 9999 and you can get like billions of HP. And a high max HP also make the damage look cooler in games where you do a lot of hits (high hit combos) like for example in Valkyrie Profile 1. Although a high max HP is favored by many people, it still makes it way harder to keep a good difficulty balance. Many suffer from the problem that leveling up and better armors are way too pointless in those games so that it could as well be removed completely.


By the way, some games don't show 'damage' or 'hp' at all. I think this is quite a good idea sometimes. Some horror games do it actually and it has the effect that the player things "I could die any time" because he isn't too sure whether he can take another hit or not. I like that.

A game with a max hp of 1 makes me think of horror games as well. Like in "either you do it right or you die". Although I'd prefer if the character could at least take one or two mistakes before he dies. Thinking of Evil Dead.
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Snippy:
"curt or sharp, esp. in a condescending way" (Oxford American Dictionary)
"fault-finding, snappish, sharp" (Concise Oxford Dictionary, UK)
1. short-tempered, snappish, 2. unduly brief or curt (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

[Moogle1]

Your argument sounds nice in theory, but it doesn't hold water. What difference does it make if you have 90 HP and take 9 damage versus having 9000 HP and taking 900 damage? It's the exact same thing, except the second one looks more impressive.
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

[Rya.Reisender]

Wait, what argument are you argumenting against? That lower numbers are easier to balance or that higher numbers are favored by players? If it's the latter as you said yourself "it looks more impressive", that's basically the main reason for it.
_________________
Snippy:
"curt or sharp, esp. in a condescending way" (Oxford American Dictionary)
"fault-finding, snappish, sharp" (Concise Oxford Dictionary, UK)
1. short-tempered, snappish, 2. unduly brief or curt (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

[Newbie_Power]

[Rya.Reisender]

But this is not a skill-needed versus strategy-needed discussion (at least it wasn't initially). Especially because the max hp doesn't depend on that at all. I can make a game with 5000 max hp where every hit damages me by 2500-5000 hp so that I still have to skillfully avoid any damage instead of bashing through the enemies. On the other hand there can be the decision "what skill to use" even if there's only 1 max hp. Like the correct skills do 1 hp damage and kill the mob and the wrong skills do 0 hp damage and let the mob survive.

Evil Dead is actuall a mix of both, you need strategy because usually only one item / skill can kill the monster, but you also need skill because if you too long to select the correct item / skill you'll die anyways.
_________________
Snippy:
"curt or sharp, esp. in a condescending way" (Oxford American Dictionary)
"fault-finding, snappish, sharp" (Concise Oxford Dictionary, UK)
1. short-tempered, snappish, 2. unduly brief or curt (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

[Newbie_Power]

It is easier to calculate how many hits a player can take with a low HP/Damage system.

And the 1 HP idea is Rimudora's. He may have his own vision on how he wants to handle a game like that.
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TheGiz> Am I the only one who likes to imagine that Elijah Wood's character in Back to the Future 2, the kid at the Wild Gunman machine in the Cafe 80's, is some future descendant of the AVGN?

[Moogle1]

[Rya.Reisender]