3685 hours later....

[XXon 31]

Edited October 28, 2022 by XXon
Wolfpack. Six pets. Wizards.

[XXon 31]

Play my game Spawn Engine Experiments.

Now with pets !!!

Edited October 28, 2022 by XXon
Wolfpack. Six pets. Wizards.

[XXon 31]

I was thinking,  3700 hours over five years, 14 hours a week average, about 1000 hours in Explore, maybe 1200 just terraforming islands and rivers. 1500 hours in scripting. Isn't that unhealthy addiction and a waste of time?

I look at Ylands as therapeutic, the art style is quite soothing and happy. That was the initial draw for me, but terraforming offers creativity and freedom, it's very pleasing somehow, like an extrusion video. Ahh. But, I found it quite frustrating that monsters suck so much. Making a haunted forest is cool, but having nothing attack you is lame. That really bugged me. So much potential, wasted. I still feel that way. Explore is a wasteland filled with mindless idiots. Artificial Intelligence it is not. I understand why, but listen. It should be this way in the Editor, a blank slate without limits. Not Explore. It needs MUCH better enemies, ones who work together. Without that, the whole thing is pointless crafting up for no reason. I think maybe you did this just to drive me nuts. I just want to make a dungeon crawl game, but no.

Aside from a book on BASIC I owned once, I know nothing at all of scripting. It is really difficult to figure it out. That's why I like it. I am completely out of my element. I am a stone mason. I don't know anything at all about game level design, scripting, quests, sculpting, landscape architecture, story plot lines, dialogue, etc. I am searching for something and sometimes it feels like I never left Explore mode. Ylands is a mental workout for me and I think about it all the time, like a background hum in my mind, trying to work out a puzzle. That is my favorite part. There is so little information and most of it is outdated. I have huge gaps in my understanding, but I do enjoy the mystery of it, I confess. If you put all the answers in front of me, I wouldn't look. Well. Maybe a little peek.

A few remarks. Swords are broken, they swing too fast and stun lock enemies, even light damage swords dominate enemies and you never get hit.. Maces, club, hammers, those are awesome. Bows are broken, guns are not. Bows cause a hardwired flee effect that you can't override. Guns don't, if you are within range, you get one shot off before it is attacking you, with a bow, it always runs away and returns for you to shoot again. It is REALLY hard just to make a friggin' game with some enemies that fight. Why isn't this a standard choice on your AI? Should these enemies act as a group? Can they heal? Can they cast? Fire or Frost?  Range? You need some basic presets to facilitate casual players who just want to make a basic adventure game without devoting their entire life to it. Also, please, a checkbox for "entities drop items" on each individual entity, not just a global checkbox. Enemies drop a lot of trash, so that is a no. I want logs from trees, so that's a yes. Global is too broad of a choice sometimes.

[anna_svecova 375]

Hi, 

Thank you for this constructive feedback

[Mello1223 591]

Hi. I'm also a bit addicted to ylands, and I also have minimal basics of scripting. I don't know anything about other things. but I also devoted a lot of time to it, and I can tell you that the best helper for learning is discord. There aren't as many people coming to the forum as there were. But I have a few comments that I have already written in your previous posts. if you want to present your game, please add screenshots, because one picture says more than 10 lines of text that anyone dont wants to read.adding default enemies would only bring more demands, for example, add a freezing attack to them, etc... in my opinion, it is better than complete enemies that we can create ourselves.

[XXon 31]

I deleted that game and uploaded

Spawn Engine Experiments , an updated version of the same thing with a new  animator spellcast instead of throwing. As I get something new, I will update and work the bugs out before adding it to the game I am building.

This isn't really a game, just a working environment that is less cluttered while I work out the finer points. Suggestions welcome, map is editable.

[XXon 31]

Today's thought: An NPC ally to fight alongside you (or even a group of NPC, each with different abilities). Imagine a socketed weapon with 2 sockets. There are 7 jewels that you might find to put in it, but only 2 jewels at a time. The jewels cause the weapon to proc, like a 5% chance of spawning a temporary ally. Wolf or wizard or warrior, etc. They fight a few minutes, then poof. Something like that. NPC can't "really" attack another NPC, but maybe it can be faked with just Move To, an emote, and some damage. Worth a shot.

 

 

[XXon 31]

If you haven't noticed, I update this game all the time. 

NEW KILLER PET. it seeks out and attacks anything nearby, but won't run off (too far). It can be healed during combat (and needs to be). This means you must switch between weapon, pet heal and healing potion during a fight. The pet takes friendly fire, so you must avoid hitting it during the fight, making the fight much better because you cannot just stand there, you must move strategically to avoid the pet and either attack or evade.

This game does not really want me to use an NPC to kill an NPC, so the script has lots of work arounds to make it seem like combat is happening even thought it's really not. It flows WAY smoother without any emotes, which destroy response time, (there aren't any attack emotes anyway) and I wonder if that's why the big crab is always so crappy.

Oh, one more technical remark: When I change an entity in the editor, I usually don't need to resample using the entity template before I test the game. When I make any changes to game logic, it MUST be resampled from the logic Template before testing the game. If you forget to resample, the logic template uses the old logic prior to changes. I always forget to resample it and then I wonder why my fix did not work and then I remember. I was not sure if this was intentional, it seems clumsy. Endless resampling.

[XXon 31]

WOLFPACK !!!

Six pets at once. Crazy, crazy action. Prepare to die.

Play now: Spawn Engine Experiments

 

Makes you think. Full party. Healer, shaman, wizard, rogue, berzerker and necro (possibly with their OWN pets). Or just a boy and his dog.

 

Edited October 29, 2022 by XXon
Wolfpack. Six pets. Wizards.

[Jdtriton 68]

Man, that looks so freaking awesome.  Might have to give it a look.

 

[XXon 31]

One wolf pet is cool. 12 not so much, but what if you had a friend instead of a pet. You give them equipment, they use it. The more they use it, the better they get, like 30% better over time, but then he dies and his equipment falls to the ground and you must find someone else to train. Maybe a fighter for hire, expensive, but he has some training and a little equipment. Enemies might charm your friend and make him kill you.

What if you could charm any animal. like a druid or ranger. Or anything at all. like an enchanter. A powerful beast would be hard to control and might break charm and turn against you mid-fight. Isn't there logic for controlling other entities? Enchanters and bards are really fun. Weaving songs together by swapping instruments, drums for speed, flute for healing, etc.

That's what I might try next, anyway. You are an enchanter and you have a bard sidekick that you can give equipment to. And a pet dog. That sounds pretty fun.

 

[XXon 31]

Here is a wizard who travels and fights along with you. He just has the one spell at the moment, but he will learn more.

Emperor Palpatine lightning attacks. Next step is lightning wars, NPS vs NPC.

 

s

Edited November 13, 2022 by XXon
New and improved pet, now with killer instinct.

[XXon 31]

Super great pet! Except, it randomly targeted any enemy within a radius. There were badly injured enemies everywhere, not dead, just mostly dead   But now, any enemy in range with health under 20% gets targeted for the kill. Nice!

 

Please, excuse this stream of consciousness monologue as I try to puzzle some things out, mainly NPC vs pet interactions.

So... really the pet should chose targets based on proximity most of the time. How does the pet (or an enemy NPC) choose which target to move toward. Or make decisions in general. A priority list. First priority, choose the injured one. Second, choose the closest enemy. Third, return to owner (no enemy in range). Every time the aggro bubble scales up and down, every 0.3 seconds, a new target is chosen. There is a built in lag before the pet actually moves to a fresh target, otherwise it is always on top of the same enemy. There is a bigger lag when it comes to following the player around. The pet will hang out and think about it before following, so he isn't all over you all the time.

Right now, the pet targeting bounces all over the place. Using proximity of the enemy as second choice (instead of just random) is the fix, hopefully. Final Fantasy 12 used gambits, the player could choose different priorities for each member in your group of AI "pets". Lots of games do this, like Baldur's Gate. You can set which AI attack has first and second priority. This is an approaching problem if this pet (or enemy NPC) has multiple spells, it must choose. The "pet" healer should use a small heal for a small wound, saving the best heal for when it is needed. Or...first, the "pet" throws the bottle of oil on the enemy, then it throws the match on the same enemy.

In the current example, the enemies the pet is attacking just flee by default.The current version of the "cry for help" bubble system tells nearby enemies to move to the player only, causing the player to flee and creating a mess of a fight. The enemy NPCs should choose a target based on priorities, exactly like the pet, hopefully with the same system. If you ever played "F.E.A.R.", the enemies have great AI. They talk about you, or their strategy. They use cover, choose attacks and evade under fire. So, if you were the enemy, what target  would you choose first? The closest? The injured? Attack whoever attacked them last? I suspect it's the last one. That means the pet is going to die, but we deal with that later. So, the NPC gets an aggro bubble just like the pet and chooses a target just like the pet, but with different priorities. Like healers and wizards die first, that's always a solid attack plan if you are a melee fighter under attack. A caster under attack would probably throw up a smoke cloud and teleport, then attack. But for now, 1st priority is target an attacker,  2nd is target the closest player or pet. There is always the "run to a healer" option for both pets and enemy NPCs, but that's for later on.

Damage to the pet right now is just faked as a random percent of the damage the pet deals out. In a fight, every enemy NPC in close range should get in a hit on the pet. The NPC enemy needs to deal damage with lightning and hit pets and players with it, so the NPC needs a damage bubble, too. Probably a double bubble, one triggers on pets and one on players. On move end, or on causing damage, it selects a new target based on priority.

Sorry for rambling. If you have any thoughts, speak.

P.S. Targeting the closest enemy, euclidean vs manhattan. I had some fun and I learned a few things along the way, just like Fat Albert. Plus, now you can set the pet to aggressive or defensive to keep him from running amok (maybe) in a dungeon, chasing things on the other sides of walls, etc.

Edited November 14, 2022 by XXon

[amrishhpuri 0]

I 'm also a bit addicted to ylands, and I also have minimal basics of scripting. I don't know anything about other things. but I also devoted a lot of time to it, and I can tell you that the best helper for learning is discord. There aren't as many people coming to the forum as there were.  teatv download

hellodear.in
 

Edited December 12, 2022 by amrishhpuri

[XXon 31]

Backend request error [500] when I try to update.

What's that?

Yeah, I know the forum is kinda dead, but that's why I post on it.

Edited November 16, 2022 by XXon

[XXon 31]

The wizard pet and the wizard enemy both work now. They will fight it out, but they are both toned way down, otherwise they kill everything in seconds.

The pet targets the closest and the wounded, he has attack mode and defense. Once he attacks, a percentage of nearby enemies move to him and attack. NPC melee vs pet is not done yet. The spellcasting part of the lightning needs work. Enemy choosing to attack player vs pet, lots of details before moving to bigger spells.

It turns out, the pet cannot be human. Humans cannot follow you around like everything else can. I lost a lot of time and effort before I figured that one out. The pet kept running far away or randomly freezing in place.

 

Edited November 24, 2022 by XXon

[XXon 31]

Red, green and blue lightning with full blown all out lightning war! Not perfect, but it has a great flow, very fluid fighting. The wand is a bit overpowered, I need to slow it down some. I will post a pic later. Awesome! I feel very pleased with how this is going.

Spawn Engine Experiments, the switch with the purple arrow, tell 'em Larry sent you.

Edit: Act now and get a free mutant bear pet. _{small handling fee may apply}

Edited November 30, 2022 by XXon

[XXon 31]

Spawn Engine Experiments got a bit crowded.

New map, it's fun. Healing staff plus other stuff.

Dark Art