Can someone explain the attack methods to me?

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Chaos Awakes
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Can someone explain the attack methods to me?

Post by Chaos Awakes »

I'm a bit puzzled over how attack methods work when supplied to a monster. Is there a list somewhere of what attack methods do what?

What's confusing me is that I've created a new monster and assigned it the attack methods PUMMEL, CHOP and THUMP. When I play the game, the monster comes over to me and attacks, but instead of the party taking any damage the monster appears to hit itself for a whopping 180 damage and dies in a couple of hits. What's going on, why does a monster attack itself?
Surely the attacks aren't hardcoded to hit a particular thing and only attacks starting with MONSTER_ attack the party? This wouldn't be very intuitive and I have no way of knowing what MONSTER_ATTACK_1 is - is that hit, thump, berzerk, what?
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George Gilbert
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Post by George Gilbert »

The key bit of information here, is that it's not the attack method itself that's important, it's the underlying action that the attack method uses which is.

The attack method itself is just a collection of different parameters (like the action done, the sound made, the skill required to use it etc) in a handy to use package. Of these it's the action which actually *does* something.

Have a look in the editor what each attack method actually does and it should be alot more obvious. For example, the PUMMEL, CHOP and THUMP attack methods all perform actions like ATTACK_MONSTER, whereas MONSTER_ATTACK_n all perform actions like ATTACK_PARTY.

Hopefully that should be enough of a pointer to get you started, but as ever, feel free to ask more questions if anything isn't clear.
Chaos Awakes
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Post by Chaos Awakes »

Ah, that explains a lot. Did you find the problem with the wrong graphics being displayed for monster attacks?
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George Gilbert
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Post by George Gilbert »

Not yet - been a bit busy today. Will hopefully have a look this evening though.
Chaos Awakes
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Post by Chaos Awakes »

Thanks George,

As I say, the attack graphics are saved and loaded by the editor from the .txt file because they are correct in the file when I look. But in the editor all three close attack graphics show the same graphic and the same graphic is shown in game whatever attack the monster does.
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Sophia
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Re: Can someone explain the attack methods to me?

Post by Sophia »

Chaos Awakes wrote:I'm a bit puzzled over how attack methods work when supplied to a monster. Is there a list somewhere of what attack methods do what?
In the editing guide... :P
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Des
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Re: Can someone explain the attack methods to me?

Post by Des »

Chaos Awakes wrote:What's confusing me is that I've created a new monster and assigned it the attack methods PUMMEL, CHOP and THUMP. When I play the game, the monster comes over to me and attacks, but instead of the party taking any damage the monster appears to hit itself for a whopping 180 damage and dies in a couple of hits.
Love it! You could create a crack suicide squad a la Life of Brian :) You could even have a puzzle where you have to keep the monsters alive (using freeze time, calm, war cry etc.) in order to get through a door or gain an item.
Chaos Awakes
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Re: Can someone explain the attack methods to me?

Post by Chaos Awakes »

Des wrote: Love it! You could create a crack suicide squad a la Life of Brian :) You could even have a puzzle where you have to keep the monsters alive (using freeze time, calm, war cry etc.) in order to get through a door or gain an item.
Oooh, now there's an idea. Needs a bit of work so it's obvious in game why the monsters are hammering themselves to death... and what happens after they're dead, you'd have to generate more and reset the puzzle.
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