MMO Style ability use

Juryiel

I worked through some of the tutorials and set up a nice real time battle system. The only problem is that I'm not sure how to get the battle commands to be used the way I want. Specifically, I want the player to have a large number of abilities, say 30, but only be able to equip 10 at any given time on a hud / hot keys. He would select targets (allies or friendlies) prior to using any abilities by clicking on the target or using some hotkey etc. Then he would activate an ability either through a hotkey or by clicking one of the 10 ability slots.

Is a control system like this possible? Everything else seems to be except those particular ways to target and use abilities. Or at least I can't figure it out. Any help would be appreciated. :)

gamingislove

That's possible with the shortcut system.

Create a Combatant type HUD and add a Shortcut element. You can set up base shortcuts in your combatant's settings - they can be changed by drag+drop and through the event system. You can also use them through Control Maps by assigning keys to the shortcut slots of the combatant.

Juryiel

I was able to figure out the shortcuts mostly, but how can I do the targeting I described? In my current combat system I'm trying to port over, each character stores their targets. There are 2 ability types (which this kit supports), Offensive and Defensive, and each player has both an offensive and defensive target that they can acquire through various controls (click for offensive, shift+click for defensive). Then, any abilities used will be used automatically on that target, rather than selecting the ability first and then the target. So I'm still not sure how to set up a targeting system mmo-style where targets are selected, and abilities are checked against that, rather than the other way around.

gamingislove

Selecting a target prior to using an ability can be done using the Group Target feature - the settings for this can be found in Battle System > Battle Settings. But this currently only allows having a single target for all abilities (that can be used on the selected target).

Juryiel

When reading that setting's description it sounds like your entire group will only be able to have that target, rather than one target for for each group member. Is that true? I haven't implemented a group yet so I can't test. Also, any plans to add multiple targets or a more flexible targeting system in general? Or is it possible to build a custom targeting system through events?

gamingislove

Yes, the group target defines a target for the whole group.

I could implement an individual targeting system based on ability types and item types in one of the next updates. By (optionally) binding the targets to selected ability types, you could have different targets for different abilities. The target would be set for the currently controlled combatant.

Juryiel

I'm not quite sure of what you are describing but that could work. Just for reference this is the type of battle system I'm trying to build at the moment. except where in adition to clicking an ability and then a target, an ability can be directly used on an already acquired target, and two target-types per character can be acquired rather than just one. If you do make concrete plans to do something that will allow me to do that at some point not years away let me know, currently I'm only testing the Kit but it looks like it can do everything else I need except that, and I need to make a decision on whether to buy, try to see if there are other kits available that can do this, or build my own solution. Thanks!

gamingislove

The system I described would allow this. It's basically working like the group target system (so, target selection through click/touch and input keys), only that the target is selected for a single combatant (the one currently controlled by the player). Additionally, multiple targets can be selected for different ability types. In your case, you could set it up to have different targets for offensive and defensive abilities.

Juryiel

Right that makes sense. Well let me know when you definitely add this to your todo list for an upcoming version and I will be sure to purchase your amazing kit :)

Juryiel

Hmm I also can't figure out how to:

Display the name and information about the current target in a HUD (though the cursor and per-combatant GUI boxes work ok for now). Ideally when i have a party that can select individual targets I'd want to display each of their targets in the party's combatant GUIs.
Automatically use a shortcut to an ability on the group target by clicking the shortcut on the hud. The closest I've gotten is to either dragging the shortcut onto the target, or double clicking the shortcut and hten clicking on the target, but that eliminates the usefulness of the 'select target ahead of time' thing, which currently seems to only be useful for AI and for Control Maps.

If these things are possible and I'm missing something let me know :)

gamingislove

Both currently not possible, but can implement them :)

Juryiel

Sounds good :) If you could also add the capability to display the Ability icon as the shortcut image in huds with shortcuts that would be great :)

gamingislove

That's already possible - you can create quite complex shortcuts with multiple labels. To display an icon, use the text code %i.

Juryiel

Ah great, thanks! Can I also ask if you've decided that you will implement the features I mentioned with the targeting etc at some point in the future? I'm not asking for an ETA or anything, just a confirmation that you think those are things that you will eventually do. The reason I ask is because I'm running into the limit of the free version and I kind of want to buy the Kit to continue developing the things that are already implemented. Let me know if / when you've decided :) Thanks!

gamingislove

It's already on my to-do list for one of the next updates - with the current update cycle probably by the end of this month :)

Juryiel

Sounds good :) Just picked it up!

Juryiel

Alright a couple of more things. Trying to work with Area of Effect now.

I've set up an ability that does 50 HP damage when it hits someone. This works when I set the ability to hit a single user. But when I set target to None and use the Raycast (range 100, standing right next to targets) it doesn't seem to do anything. I've set Layer Mask to Everything. Also, the Ray origin setting seems to do nothing. It seems to imply that it will let me use the AE centered around my mouse (when I enable click settings). Finally, I'm not sure if I'm able to set an angle range to create a cone AoE rather than a circular radius, but if that's not possible it would be useful :)

gamingislove

When using the None target with raycasts for AoE spells, you need to use damage dealers and damage zones to do damage. You can learn more about damage dealers/zones in this how-to, and an example in this game tutorial.

Generally, the raycast will set the target position that can be used by battle events to spawn prefabs with damage dealers on them ...

Juryiel

Ah ok, that wasn't clear in the GUI, I'll give it a shot, thanks!

Juryiel

Still trying to figure this out. I got some of the stuff in the damage dealer tutorials set up. I added damage zone to my combatants, I added a damage dealer to the Fire1 prefab, set it to auto activate and gave it a tag, which I then used on my AoE ability. I'm trying now to make a battle event to spawn the prefab as it seems you suggest. I set the Fire1 prefab to spawn and set the battle event's Auto Damage dealers to on. I set the Battle Event as the ability animation.

I'm confused about several things.

How can I set the damage amount?
Can I add status effects to teh AoE?
When I use the ability still nothing happens (other than my MP going down, so the ability is actulaly being used). There is no Fire1 prefab that spawns, and no damage is being dealt.
If I set target to single, it seems to be the case that the "Target Changes" do not happen if I also enable my battle event through the ability animations, although the battle event DOES happen in that case, and the fire prefab spawns (though it doesn't deal damage).

I'm sure I'm doing something wrong because i still haven't quite wrapped my head around damage dealers, just going by the tutorial.