One crazy idea that's likely going to fail and go to the huge "unfinished maps" folder

Or if it does work, it might as well just become one of the most fun custom maps ever. Small chances tho

Hey folks, "im back".

So this morning I woke up with a crazy idea after watching a movie last night. Can you guess which?

The problem is, even if it would be an 8 players map, we need lots of AIs to control the other characters (up to 24). And as far as I know, Worldbuilder doesn't take it easy on adding new players, especially if they are more than 8. They don't need to be full players tho, I just need a different "team" so they can attack the other characters and behave independently, or

The second problem would be, is it possible at all to create "alliances" between players (even the AIs)? I know you can transfer units to different players and I've heard it is possible to change allegiance of how players regard the other, but in my experience it never worked properly (although this one should be less of a problem than the first one). Line of sight might not be a problem (in real life you don't get line of sight from allies, at all, lol) but how would the allied players communicate?

I would use the custom heroes models, if players pick a custom hero they made, they get same class, but not skills. If they don't pick, they'll get a random class. Every hero would start with 0 skills or weapons (except, maybe, punch?) available, in fact all of them are going to be coded already into one huge object but they are unlocked as you pick up crates or kill other players (and u get certain upgrades that should unlock the skill/s)...I'm not exactly sure how I'll make this work (so you always get a customized/unique commandset based on what you do) but I'll find a way, if I ever have the motivation to finish this.

If I can get a rough "mix" to work and the AI characters to behave smartly, then this could be easily transferred to other maps with different environment, so you can have different arenas (with some differences of course).

However as far as I can think this is going to be a tough one on scripting... very advanced stuff, and especially making the AI characters behave smartly and do different things... considering how rusty I am and how little experience I have with designing AIs (the best I did was making a balrog AI use skills somewhat smartly in my keep defense map, making a skill-based revive system and designing a fishing boats system (which was not scripting at all), i guess), expert advice would be welcome, and who knows, if anyone wants to join with me in doing this, that might keep us motivated better than trying this alone.

Watcha think about it?

Edited by -SilverBane-, 18 May 2018 - 05:29 AM.

You didn't actually explain what you want to do beyond stating you saw a movie...

Well, I thought everyone knows the movie... It's basically a free-for-all with 24 people - in this case, characters. Most would be controlled by computer but 1 to 8 could be human controlled.

The computer-controlled characters should be able to take smart decisions like run away, chase, fight (with other computer-controlled characters or human-controlled characters)... At least the human characters should be able to form allegiances with other human characters (then break them later)... all until there is only one character standing.

All this happens in a pretty big map (so you have a lot to explore or run away and hide)...and healing, improving your character would be hard-worked...and the combat will be more realistic, with weapons mostly one-hitting other characters, or missing them, or sometimes just wounding (with DoT bleed that needs to be healed, etc)... not always taking a specified amount of HP outta your opponent.

Edited by -SilverBane-, 18 May 2018 - 10:32 AM.

So battle royale? Never seen that in a game before /s

I don't know about that AI, seems like that could be a looot of work to get them to move and use abilities in a certain manner.

As for teams communicating you'll probably have a rough time if you want them to be able to chat as I think alliance scripts won't affect what player team they are in, so even if you set them to allies they cannot team-chat unless they picked the same team at the start.. and even if you found a way to fix that problem you'll find yourself another problem having a bunch of allied players who can't attack or betray each other.

Maybe you could do something like having spellbook power buttons work as triggers to play certain voice sounds from the characters' locations... like "attack" "hold your ground" "retreat" and so on. Then adjust the volume of the sound so only nearby players can hear it. Maybe you can even find something that could be used to suggest teaming up. "join me" or whatever. But that's quite restricted and doesn't really help players to talk strategy.

Edited by Jokuc, 03 June 2018 - 08:09 PM.