KickStarter Monomyth - A first person action RPG/dungeon crawler - now in Open Backer Beta

[DJOGamer PT]

Combat is probably the main point in Mordhau, but it was never the main point in any of the 3 games mentioned as the inspiration material.

That is true, however if RatTower can also make a good combat system then all for the better.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Combat is probably the main point in Mordhau, but it was never the main point in any of the 3 games mentioned as the inspiration material.

That is true, however if RatTower can also make a good combat system then all for the better.

Sure, I enjoy the complexity and it will be funny to read butthurt comments like 'why do i have to stroll through dunjons i thought dis is about being awsum and slashing enemies 24/7 reeee'.

 

[Machocruz]

I wish I was focused like you. Great looking stuff. Comparing to the 2014, 2015 images you posted, you've come a looong way in your handling of 3D graphics. I tried teaching myself 3D modeling, but it seemed like a huge task and i didn't have enough interest in it (compared to drawing and painting, which I practiced for decades) to push forward. And your approach to interactions, level design, etc. sound very...sound.

 

[RatTower]

Thanks for the kind words!


Quick Update:
Got my replacement hardware, so we're back in business.
Did some minor stuff before getting into the combat rework:



I'm always careful with stuff like teleporters, cause they can cause massive confusion. Though, sometimes that can be fun too.
Either way, we will see if they remain a debug object or actually become part of the level design. Underworld used them to some extent.
Same goes for a couple of older dungeon crawlers. Not always the best design choice, so we'll see.

As for the combat rework, that will include three main parts:

- VFX
- Animation
- AI

The latter two are the more important ones. Of course it will also include some enemy design (test wise to get the use cases for AI right), sculpting, rigging, minor changes on the player character, etc etc
This whole thing might take a while, so I will probably also try finalizing the website whenever I find the time in between.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

I'm always careful with stuff like teleporters, cause they can cause massive confusion.

Teleporters are fun. I remember having randomized teleporters to fuck up with one's perception and turn their graph paper into puzzle itself.

Had to cut them because even I had trouble playing through the maps with them and they seemed to waste time rather than fuck with the player in a good way.

 

[SophosTheWise]

Very cool. I'm always excited about your updates.

Teleporters as fast-travel-function suck balls, but teleporters that make sense from a lore- and ingame-perspective are cool. Especially if activating them requires work (like having the right items, the right alignment, whatever). The more convoluted, the better.

I am just playing through Dark Souls for the first time and the shortcuts are brillant, especially if they're easy to miss. Like the door in Darkroot Garden that's you can only open if you have Artorias' seal. Only shit thing about it is that it's some random vendor (I think the Blacksmith) selling it for way too many souls. My point is, as a mysterious device that's not clearly/easily usable, teleporters add a lot of "adventure/puzzle" feeling.

The more I play games, the more I realize how important that feeling is. That feeling of adventure, overcoming adversities (though Dark Souls is a bit too harsh sometimes, I think, and makes you grind and replay a lot of areas) and, especially, the sense of place, the feeling of actually travelling as opposed to clicking on maps (looking at you, PoE 2)

 

[RatTower]

Super quick question:

Weapon durability yay or nay?

Can't promise it in the alpha, because it would require some refactoring and I know it's not the most popular feature in RPGs.
Currently however, there is little consequence to smashing down wooden doors (other than making a lot of noise - if you have any other ideas to prevent players from just breaking every wooden door they see, feel free to share them!)
That's just something I thought about, while replaying Ultima Underworld.

In the same refactoring process I could probably also add weapon upgrades (simple stuff like +1 modifiers).

Also have some WIP enemies/environments:


I have slightly adapted the way I go about environment design.
To cut a long story short: It's now combining the lessons from the last few environments (see previous pages) and all in all it is more gameplay driven than before, while still keeping things realistic.
So (visually) not much changed, you'll just have more stuff to do in the dungeon. Also these new levels are now fully integrated with level streaming - so no loading times for now.

I also added a very simple monster, mostly for AI testing.


So prepare seeing a couple of variations of this thing, e.g., regular slime, poisonous slime, spitting slime, icy slime and magic slime.
All of these concepts already work, they just have to be combined into a single, abstract behaviour tree.
I hope I can finish that in the next one or two weeks.

 

[Ninjerk]

Does weapon durability and breakage force the player into some similarly engaging new-weapon-acquisition mode of playing or does it amount to mindless inclusion to pad game-played time?

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Weapon durability yay or nay?

I think if it forces the player to use his resources carefully this is yay. If this adds padding to the game then nay.

If it would be up to me, I would probably have a following system in mind as an example:

• At 80-100% the sword is sharp and deals good slash damage;
• At 15-80% the sword damage type gradually moves from 'slash' to 'blunt' damage type;
• At 1-15% the sword is practically a glorified metal stick;
• At 0% it breaks apart and needs repairs, otherwise it's a just a heavier, less useful dagger w/ shitty 'piercing' damage.

This is a very rough idea, but if this leads you to a more interesting/practical system, then it's all good.

 

[RatTower]

Does weapon durability and breakage force the player into some similarly engaging new-weapon-acquisition mode of playing or does it amount to mindless inclusion to pad game-played time?

I'd just add it to prevent people from smashing their way through dungeon doors without consequences. Not necessarily to pad playtime.
But that would eventually become one effect of course, either by making you look for new weapons or by making you visit the next anvil to repair whatever you broke.
I think it's an okayish concept to "punish" the players for treating their equipment badly. It's not the most exciting one though.

In Arx it was kinda funny, because you'd take the hammer and click your weapons "healthy".
Bit of immersion fodder and more on the level of baking bread in Ultima. Which can be fine.

But to take a step back: The whole question is more about punishing players for breaking doors. Adding weapon durability is just one way to do that.

So to rephrase that question: How should players be punished for breaking doors?

 

[Ninjerk]

Does weapon durability and breakage force the player into some similarly engaging new-weapon-acquisition mode of playing or does it amount to mindless inclusion to pad game-played time?

I'd just add it to prevent people from smashing their way through dungeon doors without consequences. Not necessarily to pad playtime.
But that would eventually become one effect of course, either by making you look for new weapons or by making you visit the next anvil to repair whatever you broke.
I think it's an okayish concept to "punish" the players for treating their equipment badly. It's not the most exciting one though.

In Arx it was kinda funny, because you'd take the hammer and click your weapons "healthy".
Bit of immersion fodder and more on the level of baking bread in Ultima. Which can be fine.

But to take a step back: The whole question is more about punishing players for breaking doors. Adding weapon durability is just one way to do that.

So to rephrase that question: How should players be punished for breaking doors?

As something of a sidebar: why do you need to frame the issue punitively?

More to the point: there are so many questions not being asked here. What's behind the door (or any given locked door in your gameplay scenario)? What option is the player foregoing in breaking doors e.g. saving time spent in lockpicking minigame/progress bar, not making noises and attracting enemies, not spending points in character creation on a skill? For that matter, have you ever gained entry to a place that was locked before? There are a lot of ways to get into things you aren't supposed to that don't involve passing warded locks.

I think we should really look beyond some Option A/Option B with warrior/rogue window dressing. The genre owes a lot to Gygax and co., but we don't have to persist with their abstractions forever because of it.

(I also recognize that some ideal scenario like coming up with some new minigame beyond changing the cursor into a hammer and clicking on the item isn't really feasible, but I also think you shouldn't just extend the feature checklist a la the crafting craze that gripped all games half a decade or so ago.)

 

[RatTower]

As something of a sidebar: why do you need to frame the issue punitively?

I believe it's more exciting to design the whole thing as a game of risk and reward, which also ties into your other questions.
There are basically three kinds of doors: Wooden doors that can be broken and lockpicked, metal doors that can only be lockpicked and doors that can only be opened via mechanism (for example castle gates or portcullis). The distribution of these depends strongly on the level design and whether I really need the player to stay in a certain area. For example a shortcut for backtracking will never be locked by a breakable door, because it'd just let you skip large chunks of the game too easily. First and foremost breakable doors protect secondary locations with additional loot or items that eventually play a role in a bigger puzzle.

Other than that, Monomyth is pretty much like Underworld in this regard: Breaking doors (at the moment) saves you the time of finding a key or other alternative ways to get into a certain room.
However, in UU it also breaks your weapon, so you might not wanna smash a door with your jeweled longsword - on the other hand it might be worth it (given you can't find the key).
So (normally) the concept of risk and reward applies strongly in Underworld. That trade-off is what's missing from Monomyth at the moment. There is just the noise you make. I could keep it like that, but as we know players like to min-max their chances and/or go for the lowest hanging fruit. And that is where a big imbalance in playstyles comes in. For thiefs and mages the situation might be different, but if you play a warrior type you don't even care if you make noise. You'll bash the head of anything that comes your way. So there needs to be a little punishment for the warrior or the playstyle becomes too easy.

The problem is comparable to Othersides "creative solutions" in Underworld Ascendant (from what I've seen at least). The question there is (and that's also reflected upon in most previews): Why come up with a creative/alternative solution if I can just brute-force my way through the game? They kinda tackled the problem incentive based, by giving you a score for a certain playstyle (?) - only the release will show how that works out.

I go at the problem from another angle. I try solving it via certain punishment. Which, I must admit, comes a bit from the King's Field side as well.
That game was very punishing for bold players, going so far as to locking you into a room and making you reload the game if you jumped down a hole without preparing a teleport spell.
(I'm not gonna do that - even though I think it's funny watching people jump down that hole in let's plays :D).

 

[hello friend]

Just don't make shit break too fast from regular combat. That's where most games get it wrong. Kind of takes you out of it to have your weapons fall apart from a short time of regular usage. Perhaps you could make slashing damage degrade normally from combat, repairable with a portable whetstone, whereas breakage took a looong time. Except if you're using the sword to try to hack doors open. That shouldn't even work. If you're using a large sledgehammer, you should be able to break down a lot of doors without a problem. Maybe the tradeoff is being locked into using a sledgehammer, or at least carrying the heavy thing around all the time. What are your plans for carrying capacity? Packmule or hard choices?

Would also be cool if you could keep the broken pieces of a favourite weapon, and have it reforged by a smith with smithing skill as high as the level of the broken weapon or higher.

Don't think it makes a lot of sense for a person risking their life adventuring all the time to also be a master smith carrying a pocket anvil around with him at all times. Carrying 40 hammers around is dumb.

 

[RatTower]

Just don't make shit break too fast from regular combat. That's where most games get it wrong. Kind of takes you out of it to have your weapons fall apart from a short time of regular usage. Perhaps you could make slashing damage degrade normally from combat, repairable with a portable whetstone, whereas breakage took a looong time. Except if you're using the sword to try to hack doors open. That shouldn't even work. If you're using a large sledgehammer, you should be able to break down a lot of doors without a problem. Maybe the tradeoff is being locked into using a sledgehammer, or at least carrying the heavy thing around all the time. What are your plans for carrying capacity? Packmule or hard choices?

Monomyth got a bit of a packmule approach going on because I personally don't enjoy weight based inventories much. However it's not limitless like in King's Field. You carry a container (for example a small bag) with a certain amount of slots. You can find better containers throughout the game (for example bigger bags or backpacks) that increase the number of your inventory slots. The system is best comparable to the inventory in world of warcraft or other conventional MMORPGs. Or arx fatalis minus inventory tetris.

The damage system currently allows defining resistance to certain attack types. There are slash, stab and bludgeon attacks. The same way there are slash, stab and bludgeon damage. Each attack has a certain percentage of each damage type. So even if you "slash" with a morning star, a substantial part of that damage will be bludgeon damage. On the other side, there is simply slash, stab and bludgeon defense. So doors could basically just cancel out any slash and stabbing damage, by having 100% defense on there.

 

[AdolfSatan]

What's stopping me from carrying a couple of shittier weapons to bash down doors whilr keeping my nice monster-slaying sword pristine?
While I'm not against equipment wearing down, it feels like there should be a better solution to this.

 

[RatTower]

What's stopping me from carrying a couple of shittier weapons to bash down doors whilr keeping my nice monster-slaying sword pristine?
While I'm not against equipment wearing down, it feels like there should be a better solution to this.

I was thinking the same thing.
Inventory capacities can partly eliminate the problem, but not entirely.

Maybe one should take another step back and ask, how a warrior can get through a door without unlocking it at all? Should he even be able to?

I like the idea of smashing doors. Its not perfect. But neither is it in UU or Arx.

Or D&D or Wizardry or anything that gives you a couple of possibilities in this regard.

Maybe this is overthinking it and just a matter of trading potential exploits against additional possibilities

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Maybe make it stat based. Like a door has strength level of 3, so the player most have a matching strength to tear down the door.

 

[Zep Zepo]

Man, this makes me recall a time at the bottom of the poison swamp in Demon's Souls.

ALL my weapons had broke (and I had run out of arrows) and I had nothing to repair them with and no campfire nearby.

It REALLY sucked.

I tried to escape and get to a campfire TO MANY TIMES TO COUNT, and was always getting raped by the RNG.

Please, PLEASE, let a weapon degrade of course, but not enough to make it totally useless.

Zep--

 

[Ninjerk]

I suspect we're still confining ourselves to a small cage somehow.

 

[RatTower]

Maybe make it star based. Like a door has strength level of 3, so the player most have a matching strength to tear down the door.

I was just looking into this. Arx Fatalis apparently did it that way - I have to say "apparently" cause I actually never managed to break a door in that game. Am Shagar always just comments how the door he's hitting is too sturdy.
Combined with weapon durability it's not a bad idea though. Cause then you'd have kind of an equivalent to the thief's approach who (currently) needs enough dexterity and a lockpick to open a door without a key. Likewise a "Knock" spell can compare the casters intelligence against a value (and of course it costs mana and occupies a spell slot).

You can technically still steamroll dungeon doors with a backpack full of weapons, but at least the warrior's process of breaking a door is roughly as intricate as the ones for the other archetypes.

 

[hello friend]

Honestly, doors are usually not that easy to break down - outside of places like the US, where they're made to open inward for some odd reason. Usually you'd have trouble breaking down a door even with a ram, and these doors you typically see in dungeons in games, are thick, sturdy doors. I'm not sure the "breaking-down-doors" thing really makes much sense at all.

 

[Ninjerk]

Maybe make it star based. Like a door has strength level of 3, so the player most have a matching strength to tear down the door.

I was just looking into this. Arx Fatalis apparently did it that way - I have to say "apparently" cause I actually never managed to break a door in that game. Am Shagar always just comments how the door he's hitting is too sturdy.
Combined with weapon durability it's not a bad idea though. Cause then you'd have kind of an equivalent to the thief's approach who (currently) needs enough dexterity and a lockpick to open a door without a key. Likewise a "Knock" spell can compare the casters intelligence against a value (and of course it costs mana and occupies a spell slot).

You can technically still steamroll dungeon doors with a backpack full of weapons, but at least the warrior's process of breaking a door is roughly as intricate as the ones for the other archetypes.

I'm not sure what your breakable doors are going to look like exactly, but IRL you can gain entry into conventional wooden doors by kicking the door handle (esp. if there is a deadbolt lock that can break the frame). I think this could give you some leeway in allowing the Warrior archetype to trade HP for access (and perhaps more HP if he manages to draw the ire of a nearby monster).

 

[RNGsus]

I think with breaking dungeon doors, you could let two handed axes or mallets do the job, with the number of swings stat based. Weapon material could also be a factor; I don't know what types you'll use, if any real choice, but a shabby material may not be good enough to breach your dungeon doors.

 

[RatTower]

A bit of architecture:



I'm now in the middle of AI programming. Enemies can already manage different attacks and the code skeleton for different attack types is also ready (melee, ranged and buffs are currently supported - offensive spells can be attached to all of these, though i still have to implement/test that).
Stealth isn't considered yet (beyond regular line of sight - right now enemies are completely deaf), but that's a different part of the behaviour tree. So I'll do that once combat behaviour is handled.

Also melee attacks are (root) animation driven, meaning complex maneuvers like turn-around and jump-attacks are possible.
And we all love those, don't we?

 

[Excommunicator]

Weapon deterioration is a nay. It's maintenance and maintenance mechanics are almost always bad, just like in real life