Agency Reborn

THIS IS A PROTOTYPE - BUGS ARE PRESENT.

This is a test battle-system I have built to test out core mechanics, balancing and more. There are lots of quirks/bugs that are present. This is my first attempt at a battle system so there is a huge learning curve. That said I would love it if you could try it out and look at the following factors:

1. Is the core gameplay loop fun? If not, why?

This Battle System is meant to be the random encounters and battle system of my game so I want to ensure at the end of the day it is a fun system to play with at its' core because players will be encountering this type of system a LOT.

2. How does the UI In-Battle feel?

I am not sold on the test UI built, it just feels like your own health and resources aren't managed enough and need audial indicators to help. I also feel like there isn't enough information about the moves being shown to make important decisions but I would love to hear your thoughts/ideas on this!

3. How does the balancing feel?

I felt during my individual testing that high HP characters were at an unfair advantage but want confirmation of this before I hard pull it. The goal is to have a system where 2 full COMPLETE combo rotations is enough to kill any character and take only between 15 and 90 seconds to complete, but I don't feel like it does that yet and is skewed towards the bulkier characters.

4. What would you change?

Bearing in mind that this is a battle system for random encounters and such and that the game itself is going to be a pixel art top-down style game that is stepping away from the traditional turn-based combat.

Bear in mind that virtually all art assets used are free/test assets and will change so try not to judge off of that as I am genuinely a terrible artist.

CONTROLS

WASD - Movement
Left Click - Use Move/Select
Scroll Wheel - Change between moves

Info on the system itself

You will start by choosing a character, each character has different stats, types, and moves. There are currently only 4 variations of moves:

• Ball
• Burst
• Circle
• Slash 

There are currently only 5 types (Resulting in 20 total possible moves):

• Fire
• Water
• Earth
• Air
• Neutral 

Lastly there are 4 key stats that vary right now:

• Health
• Attack
• Defense
• Speed

 Each Character in the future will have varying stats in the following categories but presently is the same across the board: HP Regen, Energy Regen, Stamina Regen, Crit Chance, Block Chance, Cooldown Reduction, Trust.

Note - Both Crit + Block chance right now is set to 25%. If either happens the total damage for that hit will be multiplied by either 1.5 or 0.5 respectively.

Move Variations

1. Ball - The ball type move is basically a standard projectile attack, it will shoot an elemental ball (based on the move's type) in the target direction of the cursor

2. Burst - Fires a flurry of small projectiles instantly in a large circular area surrounding the player. This is an instant move, so don't use this until you are close to the enemy.

3. Circle - 4 Elemental balls will appear and begin circling your player. Upon coming into contact with an enemy or after a certain amount of time, they will disappear. Again you'll want to be close to them for this to hit but you will have some time so it's less critical compared to the Burst variation.

4. Slash - Slashes a large area in the direction of the mouse cursor. It does not cover an entire area and is only in the area towards your mouse cursor so watch where its' at before you fire this off.

Elemental Types

1. Fire - A medium element. It is neither the most powerful, nor the fastest but it still packs a fair punch at a decent speed. Well-rounded.

2. Water - Water moves travel a bit faster than Fire type moves but don't hit quite as hard, in some cases they come off of Cooldown faster as well.

3. Earth - The hardest hitting of the 4 combo elements, what it lacks in traveling speed and cooldowns it makes up for in power. Try to save this for the end of your combo if possible for the biggest damage.

4. Air - Definitely the weakest of the 4 main elements but also the most stable. It travels incredibly fast and has very low Cooldowns making it a very reliable element to have around.

5. Neutral - This element is the most powerful element overall; however, it cannot combo with any other types and it will break your current combo chain if it hits. 

Stats

1. Health - How much life you have left, when this hits 0 you lose. (debating about adding a rage state multiplier where your damage gets stronger/weaker depending on how much remaining health you have)

2. Attack/Defense - Direct comparison to your damage output. The ratio of Your Attack to your Enemies Defense (and vice versa) multiplies against the moves power to determine damage dealt (i.e. my 150 attack compared to my opponents 100 defense means that my move will have a 1.5 multiplier to its base damage)

3. Speed - Determines how fast you can move on the battlefield. I made this the most expensive stat to have high values of and I think I did a decent job balancing it but let me know if it feels way too ridiculous and needs to be adjusts.

Combo Chaining

Lastly let's talk about Combo's. There is a combo system built into this BattleSystem as well. There are 3 stages within the Combo that you can achieve with the following damage multipliers:

Level 1: 1.5x
Level 2: 2.0x
Level 3: 3.0x

These multipliers impact your overall damage. If you were going to deal 80 damage, but are in stage 3 of the combo you now do 240 damage. These multipliers stack with the Attack/Defense ratios as well as the SUPER-EFFECTIVE multiplier.

Combo's and Type-Effectiveness follow the same cycle which is as follows:

Fire<Water
Water<Earth
Earth<Air
Air<Fire

So if your enemy is an Air Type, and you hit them with a Fire type move, they will take double their total damage because it is super effective. Likewise if you use a Water type move on any enemy, they are now coated in water and are susceptible to a combo, in order to start that combo you then need to hit them with an EARTH type move next as that is what is super effective against water. If you are ever confused about what type you need to use next to chain your combo you just need to look on the LEFT SIDE of your enemy. There will be a bar with the color matching the type you need to use (i.e. Water is blue so if you see a blue bar that means you need to use a water type move to continue the combo). If no bar is present to the left side that means you cannot trigger a combo yet. Hit them with any non-neutral move to start a combo.

Note if you use any type of move other than what is required your combo will end and you will have to start over.

I do have a lot more planned for the system but I want to settle it there just to get feedback on how everything is balanced and feels so far. Again I apologize for any bugs as well as the weak art assets I am working on figuring out sound's now to add in auditory effects but that is still a WIP.

Thank you for listening to my Ted Talk!