I'm currently putting together a Paper Mario battle system with a significant emphasis on modularity. Rather than each enemy having a unique attack, every single attack in the game can be used by every single character in the game, provided that the character has that attack in their list (not unlike how Pokemon does things). [img]https://i.imgur.com/kgiBfiz.gif[/img][img]https://i.imgur.com/ppNBAgl.gif[/img] However, I'm finding that Paper Mario was extremely inconsistent with how they did damage. Let's compare Mario's Jump and Hammer attacks based on what sorts of buffs he has: [spoiler]1. Mario has his basic Boots and Hammer. He attacks an enemy with zero defense. - Jump: 2 attacks for 1 damage. Total: 2 - Hammer: 1 attack for 2 damage. Total: 2 2. Mario has the Super Boots and Super Hammer. He attacks an enemy with zero defense. - Jump: 2 attacks for 2 damage. Total: 4 - Hammer: 1 attack for 4 damage. Total: 4 3. Mario has the basic Boots and Hammer and a Power Plus. He attacks an enemy with zero defense. - Jump: 2 attacks for 2 damage. Total: 4 - Hammer: 1 attack for 3 damage. Total: 3 4. Mario has the Super Boots and Super Hammer and attacks an enemy with 1 defense. - Jump: 2 attacks for 2-1=1 damage. Total: 2 - Hammer: 1 attack for 4-1=2 damage. Total: 3 5. Mario has the basic Boots and Hammer and a Power Plus. He attacks an enemy with 1 defense. - Jump: 2 attacks for 2-1=1 damage. Total: 2 - Hammer: 1 attack for 3-1=2 damage. Total: 2[/spoiler] Jump and Hammer seem to benefit equivalently from upgrading their 'base attack'. Jump's advantage is being able to attack any enemy (that doesn't do contact damage), Hammer's advantage is doing better damage against enemies with defense. But when we introduce attack buffs like Power Plus, we see a different dynamic: Jump will always outdamage Hammer as long as the attack buff is larger than the enemy Defense. If x is the tier of the equipment used, y is the sum of the rest of the attack buffs, and d is enemy defense, then the damage formula for each is: Jump Damage = 2(x+y-d) Hammer Damage = 2x+y-d (and for more examples) Kooper's Shell Shot = floor(2x*1.17)-d Koops's Shell Shot = 2x+y-d Bobbery's Bomb = 2+x-d Ms Mowz's Love Slap = x Yoshi's Ground Pound= [spoiler][code] sum = 0; if (y+1-d > 0) for (i=0;i<x;i++) { if (y-d > 1) { sum += y-d; y--; } sum += 1 }[/code][/spoiler] My question is: Are arbitrary formulas like this a logical way to do damage calculations? Should one's base attack and buffs be treated differently? Action commands are also fairly arbitrary. How much less damage should one do for failing a command? Should buffs be factored in before or after the command's extra damage? Should an attack always do damage, even when the command fails? This varies fairly dramatically between partners and their abilities. Should enemies succeed or fail their action commands-and if an enemy does double damage due to passing a command, should their shown attack stat be doubled to reflect that?

I think your problem here is a product of how simple Paper Mario's battle system is. When damage calculations are additive/subtractive instead of mulplicative/divisive (like in Pokemon), it creates a bias towards multi-hit attacks. One of my favorite examples of this is Mega Man Battle Network 5. For perspective, most chips deal damage in the 40-200 range and bosses have HP in the 1000-4000 range. But if you combine three Vulcan3 chips, you get an InfiniteVulcan that deals (20 x 28) = 560 damage. And if you combine this with Attack+30, DoublePoint and Number Soul, you now deal ((20 + 30 + 20 + 10) x 28) = 2240 damage. This is enough to one-shot about 90% of the game bosses. So obviously, you need to be careful with your damage formulas. To balance them, I'd make multi-hit attacks suffer more strongly against defensive foes. Then strong single-hit attacks could keep thier usefulness. Heck, you could probably have a dynamic where you lower defense with strong single-hit attacks then follow up with multi-hit ones. [quote="[url=http://phpbb.mfgg.net/viewtopic.php?p=508444#p508444]Magnemania[/url]"]Action commands are also fairly arbitrary. How much less damage should one do for failing a command? Should buffs be factored in before or after the command's extra damage? Should an attack always do damage, even when the command fails? This varies fairly dramatically between partners and their abilities.[/quote] Damage reduction for failed commands depends entirely on how punishing you want your game to be. You can go the route of "succeeding commands add extra damage" or "failing commands results in cataclysmic failure". I think straightforward attacks like melee should have low damage reduction while technical stuff like projectiles and magic suffer from high damage reduction. As for buffs, why not both? You could have weak buffs that give a flat bonus and stronger buffs that only apply to successful commands (like All or Nothing). The latter could even increase the difficulty of action commands. [quote="[url=http://phpbb.mfgg.net/viewtopic.php?p=508444#p508444]Magnemania[/url]"] Should enemies succeed or fail their action commands-and if an enemy does double damage due to passing a command, should their shown attack stat be doubled to reflect that?[/quote] Why do enemies even have action commands? That's something out of the player's control and all it does is add slight variation in damage taken. Personally, I'd handle failed enemy action commands like the Mario and Luigi series. If an enemy fails an attack, they stumble and hit someone else instead. So the guard timing has changed and the player needs to stay on their toes!

[quote="DragonDePlatino"]I think your problem here is a product of how simple Paper Mario's battle system is. When damage calculations are additive/subtractive instead of mulplicative/divisive (like in Pokemon), it creates a bias towards multi-hit attacks. One of my favorite examples of this is Mega Man Battle Network 5. For perspective, most chips deal damage in the 40-200 range and bosses have HP in the 1000-4000 range. But if you combine three Vulcan3 chips, you get an InfiniteVulcan that deals (20 x 28) = 560 damage. And if you combine this with Attack+30, DoublePoint and Number Soul, you now deal ((20 + 30 + 20 + 10) x 28) = 2240 damage. This is enough to one-shot about 90% of the game bosses. So obviously, you need to be careful with your damage formulas. To balance them, I'd make multi-hit attacks suffer more strongly against defensive foes. Then strong single-hit attacks could keep thier usefulness. Heck, you could probably have a dynamic where you lower defense with strong single-hit attacks then follow up with multi-hit ones.[/quote] I'd say that the bias towards multi-hit only occurs when the average enemy has low defense; most Paper Mario enemies have only 0. One can accomplish what you're describing by simply making the average defense higher. The dynamic of multi-hit vs single hit in Paper Mario is a fairly interesting part of the combat that I'd like to keep; there just needs to be a slightly better ratio between average attack boost/average defense, and a few less multi-hit attacks that do only one damage per hit. [quote]Damage reduction for failed commands depends entirely on how punishing you want your game to be. You can go the route of "succeeding commands add extra damage" or "failing commands results in cataclysmic failure". I think straightforward attacks like melee should have low damage reduction while technical stuff like projectiles and magic suffer from high damage reduction.[/quote] I do like the idea of the attack damage reduction being proportional to the strength of the spell, though [img]https://i.imgur.com/RjPHpqM.gif[/img] seems a bit silly. [quote]As for buffs, why not both? You could have weak buffs that give a flat bonus and stronger buffs that only apply to successful commands (like All or Nothing). The latter could even increase the difficulty of action commands.[/quote] What I mean in the context of buffs is: if Mario gets the Super Hammer, his Hammer damage increases multiplicatively and goes to 4. If he gets a Power Plus instead, his Hammer damage is incremented to 3. Does it makes sense for the damage to be affected on a per attack vs per hit basis depending on the buff type? One could even argue that as it currently is, Power Plus rewards those who are successful with Action Commands, as it only causes Jump to outperform Hammer when Action Commands are successful. [quote] Why do enemies even have action commands? That's something out of the player's control and all it does is add slight variation in damage taken. Personally, I'd handle failed enemy action commands like the Mario and Luigi series. If an enemy fails an attack, they stumble and hit someone else instead. So the guard timing has changed and the player needs to stay on their toes![/quote] Allow me to rephrase. [b]Every single attack in the game[/b] has an Action Command associated with it, regardless of whether the player or an enemy is using it. When an enemy has an attack added to their list, they also tag it with an associated 'competency'; they will always succeed or fail the action command based on that value. There is no element of randomness; they always perform the attack the same way. Let's take the Fireball spell as an example: When the Action Command is failed, the Fireball spell does ATK damage; when the Action Command is succeeded, the Fireball spell does 1+ATK damage. 1. Suppose an enemy with 1 ATK is tagged to always successfully complete the Action Command on the Fireball spell. This means that it will always do 1 more than its ATK value in damage. Should the player see its ATK value be listed as 1, or 2? 2. The Lunge attack is displayed in the GIFs at the top. When the player used it, the attack did 1+ATK damage due to passing the Action Command. The enemy snakes, on the other hand, always fail the Action Command, so they only do ATK damage. For many attacks (lunge included) there is no visual difference between the AI failing and the AI passing the Action Command. Would it be bad design if other enemy types succeeded on that command, gaining the extra damage? 3. Generally, should there be a preference for AIs to fail or pass Action Commands? If one were to compare Paper Mario enemies to Partners, Goombas always fail Headbonk, but Koopas and Parakoopas always succeed on their Shell Shots/Dives. Just for fun, here's the current script for the Fireball spell. Phase 0 is Player, Phase 1 is enemy. When the enemy calls cmdFill (the script responsible for the action command), it immediately returns true with the enemy's success value. [spoiler]//Starting code if (t == -1) { makeFillTube(0); makeButton(0,1); return false; } if (t == 0) { setActLength(130,50); character.sprite_index = character.sprCharge; chargeFX = -1; activateAC(); } if (t < actLength) { endAct = cmdFill(0,0.8); if (chargeFX != -1) { chargeFX.scale += CHARGEFXRATE; } else if (tube.fill > 0) { chargeFX = instance_create(character.x,character.y,ChargeFX) chargeFX.color = colAct; } if (endAct) { t = actLength; } } if (t <= zoomLength) { if (phase == 0) returnCamera(t/zoomLength); } if (t == actLength) { if (chargeFX != -1) with (chargeFX) instance_destroy(); var fireSize; if (pass) fireSize = 1; else fireSize = 0.5; if (pass || phase == 1) character.sprite_index = character.sprRanged; else character.sprite_index = character.sprHurt; fireball = spawnFireball(fireSize); fireball.target = target[0]; with (fireball) arcTo(target.xTargetCenter,target.yTargetCenter,60,-5); clearAC(); if (phase == 0) with (cam) event_user(1); else xFollowCamera(fireball); t = 500; } if (t == 560) { with (fireball) instance_destroy(); with (cam) event_user(1); harm(target[0],calcAttack(character)+(1*pass)); if (target[0] != character) character.sprite_index = character.sprIdle; } if (t == 600) { return true; } return false;[/spoiler]

I see what you mean. Action commands aren't used to add variation to enemy attacks, but to increment their strength like in other RPGs. In which case, I would display the ATK value [i]after[/i] the Action Command bonus. Though unecessary, if you want to draw a distinction between succeeded and failed Action Commands, give them a different appearance. Failed could be a number with a blue circle behind it. Succeeded could be a bright yellow star shape. And yes, I like the idea of some enemies having Action Command preferences. And if you're gonna go that route, here's an idea: buffs that make allies always succeed commands or opponents always fail them.

Jumps in Paper Mario will do more damage with attack buffs, yes, but let's also keep in mind they have the trickier Action Commands in general. It's a bit more difficult to time Mario landing on the enemy - especially depending on the enemy's position - than it is to time the Hammer gauge. This is the trade-off for being able to hit generally any enemy anywhere, as opposed to the Hammer which can only hit the enemy in front usually. It is more difficult to perform, but under the right circumstances much more rewarding. Interestingly, the situation is reversed in Sticker Star and Colour Splash, since you can't pick targets, and Hammer moves generally hit either multiple enemies or a single enemy for a lot of damage - but timing that star is more difficult than timing Mario's landings. I think you should consider the difficulty of performing the Action Command when determining the amount of damage dealt. Performing a complex Command only to get next-to-nothing out of it - even in optimal circumstances - is disheartening.

[quote="DragonDePlatino"]I see what you mean. Action commands aren't used to add variation to enemy attacks, but to increment their strength like in other RPGs. In which case, I would display the ATK value [i]after[/i] the Action Command bonus. Though unecessary, if you want to draw a distinction between succeeded and failed Action Commands, give them a different appearance. Failed could be a number with a blue circle behind it. Succeeded could be a bright yellow star shape.[/quote] Hm...In that case, it might be best to not list their base ATK at all. Rather, the best information would be listing each of their attacks and the associated damage of each one, alongside a symbol for the the failing/passing of a command. I suppose it would be best to give all failed action commands a distinct visual during the attacks, anyways. [quote]And if you're gonna go that route, here's an idea: buffs that make allies always succeed commands or opponents always fail them.[/quote] That is an interesting concept, though...would the buff to make Action Commands succeed have an Action Command? Perhaps it would work better as a passive upgrade, like a badge. It reminds me of how Crypt of the Necrodancer has an entire character dedicated to ignoring the main gimmick of the game (rhythm-based inputs). [quote="Zero Kirby"]Jumps in Paper Mario will do more damage with attack buffs, yes, but let's also keep in mind they have the trickier Action Commands in general. It's a bit more difficult to time Mario landing on the enemy - especially depending on the enemy's position - than it is to time the Hammer gauge. This is the trade-off for being able to hit generally any enemy anywhere, as opposed to the Hammer which can only hit the enemy in front usually. It is more difficult to perform, but under the right circumstances much more rewarding.[/quote] That is a valid point...Out of curiosity, is the exact timeline of a Jump attack different for different enemies? I know that I've certainly had trouble with odd landing positions in PM and TTYD. I know Mario's horizontal speed is modified based on distance to the enemy, but I don't know about his vertical speed/gravity. I currently use this function for all of my arcs: [spoiler][code]/* arcTo 0: x coordinate of destination 1: y coordinate of destination 2: time for arc to complete 3: 'arc' value, modifies gravity */ var arcToarcTime; arcToarcTime = argument2+1; if (arcToarcTime < 5) arcToarcTime = 5; hspeed = (argument0-x)/(arcToarcTime); vspeed = (argument1-y)/(arcToarcTime); vspeed += argument3; gravity = -2*argument3/(arcToarcTime);[/code][/spoiler] I'd need to make a different one if gravity is constant and Jump times vary between enemies. [quote]Interestingly, the situation is reversed in Sticker Star and Colour Splash, since you can't pick targets, and Hammer moves generally hit either multiple enemies or a single enemy for a lot of damage - but timing that star is more difficult than timing Mario's landings.[/quote] I've always found that fairly interesting in Sticker Star. I really do wish Sticker Star had a difficulty setting that doubled enemy health. If there's one thing the Sticker Star battle system kept from the main games, it was the satisfaction of completing battles in a single turn, but a single Line Jump was enough to easily end nearly every battle. [quote]I think you should consider the difficulty of performing the Action Command when determining the amount of damage dealt. Performing a complex Command only to get next-to-nothing out of it - even in optimal circumstances - is disheartening.[/quote] That is a good topic, then. Let's compare Bombette's Body Slam and Bomb attacks. Let's assume that Bombette's ATK goes from 1-2-4, since Paper Mario 64 isn't very consistent about attack increases when party members level up: ATK is Bombette's attack value, AC is equivalent to a value from the range of success the player can have with the Action Command. Body Slam AC = <0,1> DMG = ATK+AC Body Slam is a fairly easy AC to execute, so it only does 1 more damage when the command is executed successfully. ATK has no effect on AC. Bomb AC = <0,2+ATK> DMG = 1 + AC Bomb is a significantly harder AC to execute. ATK has no effect whatsoever on the base damage, only the damage output through AC. There's a fairly dramatic difference between the effect of the AC on these two moves, and they're only one tier removed on the same character! Is that entirely justified by Bomb's difficulty? More questions! 1. It was impossible to buff partner damage in PM64 (outside of Goombario's Charge). If we could, theoretically, equip a Power Plus P (denoted with a 'P')...which should Bombette's new Bomb formula be: A: AC = <0,2+ATK) DMG = P+1+AC B: AC = <0,2+P+ATK) DMG = P+1+AC Option A is how Thousand Year Door does things, Option B treats P as part of ATK. This goes along with the 'treating buffs and base attack differently' thing I was talking about with Jump vs Hammer. 2. If an Action Command gains more degrees of success due to ATK being higher (as with Bomb), can it become more difficult with each degree? There is no precedent for this. This would be similar to, say, a version of Power Bounce where the damage is constant and the number of hits is equivalent to Mario's ATK. 3. In terms of strategy, Power Smash is essentially the same move as Bomb. However, significantly less of Power Smash's damage comes from the Action Command portion of the move. Is it all due to the AC's difficulty?