mixster

mixstermon!

Initial idea for `stats':
Physical Attack
Physical Defence
Ranged Attack
Ranged Defence
Mental Attack
Mental Defence
Speed
Agility
Endurance
Energy
Level
Experience

Physical attack/defence dictates the (or lack of) effectiveness of contact attacks, for example a full body tackle.

Ranged attack/defence dictates the (or lack of) effectiveness of ranged attacks, for example a fireball attack.

Mental attack/defence dictates the (or lack of) effectiveness of mental attacks, for example a `leer' attack which lowers the opponents attack (or is it defence).

Speed dictates how quickly an attack can happen and how quickly it can attack again afterwards.

Agility dictates how well an attack can be avoided or how likely it is to be a partial hit (ie less raw damage dealt rather than completely removed).

Endurance dictates how quickly (or slowly) it becomes fatigued, ie unable to attack.

Energy dictates how able a mixstermon is to fight - once it reaches zero, it is no longer able to battle. Energy is lowered when using an attack (by a small amount) or when a physical/ranged attack connects (by a larger amount).

Level dictates roughly how strong a mixstermon is as level reflects the total amount of stats to a rough point.

Experience dictates how developed a mixstermon is and upon reaching a certain amount it increases the overall level of the mixstermon.

Level and experience will always go up. The other stats (apart from energy) will normally go up. Energy will normally go down in a battle and normally go up outside of battle.

There are two exceptions to the majority of stats going up, these are training (permanent effect) and mental attacks (temporary effect).

Training leads to a rise of one skill at the drop of another. Various methods of training become available, leading to different raising of skills and dropping of others. For example, early on one may only be able to increase physical/ranged attack at the expense of physical/ranged defence or vice versa. However, later on they may be able to train mental strength and defence at the expense of physical attack and defence and much more.

Under normal conditions, this is a simple trade off of x in one stat for x in another. However, after levelling up, the player can increase a stat without lowering another. The amount of `free training points' they get increases as levels increase.

Stats also have base levels, at which point they can't decrease (and so any training that lowers it is no longer available). To allow training from the beginning, low level mixstermon will start with an amount of `free training points' that have been used to increase stats.

The base levels of stats can also increase over time as they are used more, for example by using a lot of physical attacks, the base level may increase. This will follow it's own mini-levelling system, except with a steeper curve compared to normal levelling.

The exp gained for stats relates to the attack being used (thus endurance, which is used in practically all attacks due to its link to energy, levels the most naturally) and will be based primarily on how effective it is.

For example, more attack exp will be earned if the attack does more raw damage (ie before taking into account the defence stat). Where as defence earns more exp if it removes more damage from an attack.

Moves will not always be dependent on only a single stat. For example, a `quick attack' move may do more damage if speed is higher. Likewise, a defensive move may benefit from higher mental defence.

On top of the general stats, there will also be resistances. Each resistance refers to a specific type, ie fire, water.

The resistance dictates how effective an attack of that type will be, both in terms of attack and defence. For example, a fire attack from a mixstermon with a high fire resistance level will be more powerful; a fire attack on a mixstermon with a high fire resistance level will be less powerful.

Thus, it's not so much resistance as it is general skill with a specific type, but that doesn't relate too well to both it's offensive and defensive relationship - if a better word is suggested, it will be used.

Like level, resistance can only go up. Receiving attacks of a type or using attacks of a type contribute experience to the resistance.

Individual mixstermon have caps on how much they can level resistances, with upward `evolution' usually allowing higher caps on types.

Next, onto evolution.

mixstermon will be able to evolve in 3 distinct ways:
upward evolution
sideways evolution
backward evolution (/devolution)

Upward evolution is the main kind. This occurrs when a mixstermon meets the stat and/or resistance requirements of a more powerful mixstermon.

Backward evolution occurrs when a mixstermon no longer meets the stat and/or resistance requirements of the current mixstermon and so (d)evolves to a weaker mixstermon.

Sideways evolution occurrs when a mixstermon no longer meets the stat and/or resistance requirements of the current mixstermon, but does meet the requirements for one on the same level as it.

As mentioned, evolution relies primarily on stats and resistances. The stat requirements will not be based solely on base stats, but also include training points, hence why backward/sideways evolution is possible.

To prevent backward evolution happening overly commonly, an upward evolution usually leads to improved training points. Also, a mixstermon has stats required to evolve, but lower stats required to still be one.

For example, a specific mixstermon may need 200 physical attack to evolve, but requires a physical attack stat of under 190 to evolve backwards.

Upwards and sideways evolutions will be able to be stopped, however backwards evolutions can not be. Bearing in mind sideways evolutions are an alternative to backwards evolutions, if a sideways evolution is cancelled, it will evolve backwards.

In the case that a mixstermon could upward/sideways evolve into multiple mixstermon, it will be randomly selected which one. However, this could change and instead divide actual stats by evolved mixstermons requirements to give a ratio, then the variation of this used to see which mixstermon would be most alike to the current.

For example, if one mixstermon required 200 physical attack and 250 speed, where as another required 250 attack and 250 speed, and the current mixstermon just increased its speed to 250, while also having 250 attack, it would evolve into the second one.


Now, onto battling system!

The battle system centres around moves. They fall into one of three categories: physical, ranged, mental. Physical attacks indicate actual body contact, ranged indicates an attack from a distance, mental indicates it only affects stats other than energy/endurance.

Each move has a warmup time, an execution time and a cool down time. Warmup time is how long a move takes to prepare - if interupted during this time, the move is cancelled with a small cool down time. At the end of the warmup period, the energy to perform the attack is removed.

During the execution time, the attack itself is thought to be in motion, where by it strikes the opponent at the end of the execution time. If attacked during this time, the move isn't cancelled, but some energy is removed from the attack itself. If enough is removed, the move is cancelled, but with full cool down time.

Cool down time is the time taken to recover after launching an attack. Attacks during this time will have the normal affect.

On top of this, most moves will also cause a recover period to occur for the receiver. This time will be relevant to how much damage was done, but won't be overly large. This delay occurs in all stages of an attack, appending time to the short cool down of a failed attack or a normal move cool down and increasing the time taken to execute an attack.

The general layout is that physical attacks have a short warm up, long execution, medium cool down; ranged attacks have a long warm up, short execution, medium cool down. Mental moves are then split into `offensive' and `defensive' (depending on if it's affecting the opponent or own mixstermon).

Offensive mental moves have a medium warm up, short execution, medium cool down. Defensive mental moves have a short warm up, medium execution, medium cool down. Note that all of these short, medium and long values are relative to the overall time to execute an attack.

The general timings will be that physical and ranged attacks take roughly the same time. Mental offensive moves will take a bit less than physical and ranged attacks, with mental defensive moves taking a bit less than the offensive mental moves.

As well as offering a variety of moves, `adverbs' will be able to be attached to moves. These affect how the move itself is performed, for example attaching quick to a move would reduce the warm up and execution times, but reduce the overall damage caused.

They may not always have negative impacts and may require addition energy on top of the moves energy. Unsure at the moment if multiple adverbs should be able to be combined, but thinking not.

As well as the quite general `adverbs', one will also be able to attach an element to an attack, making use of the resistance system. Having higher resistances will offer more powerful levels of elemental properties to attach, either more power at more cost, or same power at lower cost.

`Team attacks' are also a possibility, where by launching multiple attacks so to make them in sync results in improved damage being done (as long as they are for the same target of course). Unsure if this should be up to the user to do or if they should be offered as actual options, which then require mixstermon of a certain amount and have them capable of performing specific attacks.

An example of the latter case could be the team attack `double attack', which as a general idea, would involve two mixstermon attacking with the same move at the same time, reducing the foes chance to evade and causing more damage.

The potential benefits of abusing the team attack system is offset by the mixstermon moves acting as one as it were, ie if one mixstermon is attacked during warm up phase, the entire move is cancelled or if one is attacked during execution, then the time to execute is increased. Cool down time after an attack/failed attack is individual though.

Of course, as the attacks will have to be performed in time, the mixstermon can only be as fast as the slowest one. So this adds further risk to the attacks. So far it is quite suggested that they are `attacks' and thus offensive, but it may too be possible to have defensive moves of the like.

Thus, the more of your team involved in team attacks, the more risky it is to perform (but more often the higher the reward). This should hopefully prompt for more thinking game playing.