Author Topic: Questions for other enemy designers  (Read 24037 times)

Offline ptarth

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Re: Questions for other enemy designers
« Reply #30 on: January 20, 2016, 06:40:15 am »
Are there any more 1x1 Attackers and 1x1 Wanders in the works? I have some defined for some of the bosses I've been attempting and they seem to swamp the spawn pool. Chris said he was going to have Gumbas, so where did they go?

Alternatively, should I just throw the Gumbas I have at Misery and get him to add them?
Note: This post contains content that is meant to be whimsical. Any belittlement or trivialization of complex issues is only intended to lighten the mood and does not reflect upon the merit of those positions.

Offline Cinth

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Re: Questions for other enemy designers
« Reply #31 on: January 20, 2016, 07:07:12 am »
Need a 1x1 Fodder class  :D
Quote from: keith.lamothe
Opened your save. My computer wept. Switched to the ST planet and ship icons filled my screen, so I zoomed out. Game told me that it _was_ totally zoomed out. You could seriously walk from one end of the inner grav well to the other without getting your feet cold.

Offline Misery

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Re: Questions for other enemy designers
« Reply #32 on: January 20, 2016, 07:38:21 am »
I'd argue that it is the most important time to be doing checking of this nature.

Here are the counts. They are based on my install which has a few extra nonstandard rooms in it.
Code: [Select]
   Symbol Freq               Type
1       #  260    1x1 Local Guard
2       $  138      3x3 Local AOE
3       %  219      1x1 Jumpscare
4       ~   76         3x3 Sniper
5       1  626        1x1 Pursuer
6       3  221         3x3 Wander
7       5   42       5x5 Wanderer
8       7   25       7x7 Fearsome
9       A  125       3x3 Attacker
10      d   30 1x1 Deadly Pursuer
11      h   85    3x3 Chaos-Adder
12      k   35    5x5 Chaos-Adder
13      L   28       5x5 Attacker

Yeah, now's the time to be doing this.  Particularly since patching and such is likely to continue for awhile after release.  I still will have the entire Misery difficulty to do, myself.  Even Hard mode is going to just BARELY squeak by..... probably.

Pursuers are WAY too frequent here.  5x5 and 7x7 are really needing more.


Damn bloody stupid modify button!

Offline ptarth

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Re: Questions for other enemy designers
« Reply #33 on: January 20, 2016, 03:10:09 pm »
So, I still haven't gotten it, what are you guys doing that you keep clicking on the modify button? I'll send those Goombas off after I finish another level or two.
Note: This post contains content that is meant to be whimsical. Any belittlement or trivialization of complex issues is only intended to lighten the mood and does not reflect upon the merit of those positions.

Offline Misery

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Re: Questions for other enemy designers
« Reply #34 on: January 20, 2016, 04:34:44 pm »
So, I still haven't gotten it, what are you guys doing that you keep clicking on the modify button?

It's not that I keep accidentally modifying my own posts, it's that I keep accidentally clicking it on everyone ELSE'S posts.

I havent been a moderator for long and the "modify" button is in the exact spot where the "quote" button normally is so I sometimes automatically click it and then only realize halfway into typing that there's no "quote" brackets.   Clearly this is a devious plan by whoever designs the forum thing or whatever it is.  Very devious indeed.

Offline PokerChen

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Re: Questions for other enemy designers
« Reply #35 on: January 20, 2016, 06:32:01 pm »
 In the mean time, it would help if we know how many ships are currently in each category in the release branch (SVN). This would actually help us determine if certain categories need more enemies than others.

 I mean, pursuers are essentially 1x1 Fodder, but there's only a couple of those so people see it ALL the time (boring factor x N)...

Offline Captain Jack

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Re: Questions for other enemy designers
« Reply #36 on: January 20, 2016, 11:25:20 pm »
Hey guys, looking to jump into making some enemies when I'm done with my super special current project, but I wanted to ask before I jump in: can enemies be made to inflict status effects on the player? I've noticed ingame items mention poison and I know damage-over-time is a thing for player weapons, but is there anything beyond that?

Offline ptarth

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Re: Questions for other enemy designers
« Reply #37 on: January 21, 2016, 01:00:21 am »
Short Answer: Yes.

Longer Answer:
Systems can effect:
  • Self
  • MyShots
  • MyParentEntity
  • EntitiesMyShotsHit
  • OnUse_ParentEntity
  • OnUse_ParentEntityFutureShots
  • MyParentEntityMainGunShots
  • NearbyEntities
  • EntitiesHitByMyParentEntityMainGunShots

Things you can do are:
https://www.arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Starward_Rogue:XML_-_Enum_Reference#EntityModifierType

Side Note: I tried to get NearbyEntities to work, but it wasn't having it. I'm not sure if it works or not. Keith thinks it does, but I haven't seen anyone use it correctly yet.
Note: This post contains content that is meant to be whimsical. Any belittlement or trivialization of complex issues is only intended to lighten the mood and does not reflect upon the merit of those positions.

Offline ptarth

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Re: Questions for other enemy designers
« Reply #38 on: January 22, 2016, 12:20:30 am »
New room demographics
Rooms Count: ~460 (I have some extras laying around)
Code: [Select]
          Boss_Giant            Boss_Large        Boss_Rectangle        Boss_RectEdged           Boss_Square    Boss_TallFromSouth
                    1                     7                     2                     2                     3                     1
        CheapItemShop             Condemned       ConsumablesShop         DefensiveShop         FatHorizontal           FatVertical
                    4                    15                     1                     1                    19                    27
        HealthUpgrade                  Item              Miniboss         MinibossLarge        MinibossMedium           MonsterFree
                    3                    18                    11                     5                     1                    35
                 Quad                QuadEE                QuadNN              QuadNNWW                QuadSS              QuadSSEE
                   42                     8                     7                     6                     8                     7
               QuadWW             RobotShop        SecretFreeLoot  SecretHealthForItems               SmallEW               SmallNS
                   10                     4                     4                     2                    12                     7
               Square              SquareNE              SquareSW              Standard            StandardEW            StandardNS
                   28                    22                    19                    20                    26                    28
             Starting StartingForFirstFloor          TestOnlyQuad            TunnelTall            TunnelWide           WeaponsShop
                   14                     5                     4                    13                    12                     2

Enemy Spawn Demographics
Code: [Select]
   Symbol Freq               Type
1       #  261    1x1 Local Guard
2       $  159      3x3 Local AOE
3       %  230      1x1 Jumpscare
4       ~   79         3x3 Sniper
5       1  652        1x1 Pursuer
6       3  228         3x3 Wander
7       5   44       5x5 Wanderer
8       7   33       7x7 Fearsome
9       A  133       3x3 Attacker
10      d   32 1x1 Deadly Pursuer
11      h   98    3x3 Chaos-Adder
12      k   48    5x5 Chaos-Adder
13      L   31       5x5 Attacker
« Last Edit: January 22, 2016, 01:00:08 am by ptarth »
Note: This post contains content that is meant to be whimsical. Any belittlement or trivialization of complex issues is only intended to lighten the mood and does not reflect upon the merit of those positions.

Offline PokerChen

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Re: Questions for other enemy designers
« Reply #39 on: January 22, 2016, 12:43:44 am »
 Misery: if you're looking at this, I've updated my ships, code simplification and also implemented a suggestion by ptarth. There's a 4th type adding to the 3x3 attackers, which will always come in a pair for hopefully twice the drops. (They should only seed from floor 2 onwards, so there are only two varieties.)
 ptarth: I'm thinking a damage multiplier of 0.5 would be more consistent than 0.0, players will then only be damaged for 1, not 2 when leaping over the white bullets.

 Please unzip as before - this version is current as of 0.960.

Offline Pepisolo

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Re: Questions for other enemy designers
« Reply #40 on: January 22, 2016, 05:20:16 am »
Quote
I tried to get NearbyEntities to work, but it wasn't having it. I'm not sure if it works or not. Keith thinks it does, but I haven't seen anyone use it correctly yet.

I also tried to use this a while back, but it didn't work.

Offline Misery

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Re: Questions for other enemy designers
« Reply #41 on: January 25, 2016, 07:37:25 am »
Misery: if you're looking at this, I've updated my ships, code simplification and also implemented a suggestion by ptarth. There's a 4th type adding to the 3x3 attackers, which will always come in a pair for hopefully twice the drops. (They should only seed from floor 2 onwards, so there are only two varieties.)
 ptarth: I'm thinking a damage multiplier of 0.5 would be more consistent than 0.0, players will then only be damaged for 1, not 2 when leaping over the white bullets.

 Please unzip as before - this version is current as of 0.960.

Okay, now that things have calmed the heck down, I've grabbed this and will be having a look at it shortly.

Expect to probably see it in-game tomorrow, I should think!

Offline Misery

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Re: Questions for other enemy designers
« Reply #42 on: January 25, 2016, 05:50:43 pm »
Your stuff is in, Zharmad!  I've sent this update to Chris just now.   Would have done it earlier in the night, but there was a boss to fix that REALLY didn't want to do what I told it.  And the Warden glitch.  Ugh.  Not a fun night as that stuff goes.

But these enemies are in.  I saw no reason to make any changes right now, and have given them their own art.   It sounds like Chris will be sending out another Steam update later today, so they should start showing up then!

Offline PokerChen

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Re: Questions for other enemy designers
« Reply #43 on: January 25, 2016, 07:21:00 pm »
 Thanks! I think there may be potential player problems when the twins seed in a narrow corridor, although the cooldown between the brother's shield should be long enough. Would other wish for a leashing function to keep them together.

 With the way that Warden is treating you, one could think you're the one imprisoned within the hulk.
« Last Edit: January 25, 2016, 07:23:55 pm by zharmad »

Offline ptarth

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Re: Questions for other enemy designers
« Reply #44 on: January 27, 2016, 10:42:37 pm »
Getting a reasonable mix of color variation in shots is important, you want to have roughly balanced quantities of shots of each color. To do it correctly, we'd need to measure for each color shot size*shot frequency*weapon use frequency*enemy frequency and so forth. And that's complicated. So I did the quick and ugly version and just counted the number of each color instance in the bulletpatterns and bulletpatternvars files.

  • Red 490
  • Blue 445
  • Green 387
  • Yellow 318
  • Purple 227
  • Gold 195
  • White 173
  • Pink 90

So in conclusion, I'm going to working on making Pink and White weapons for a while.
Note: This post contains content that is meant to be whimsical. Any belittlement or trivialization of complex issues is only intended to lighten the mood and does not reflect upon the merit of those positions.