New AI
After introducing the new normal attack types in the last update the AI felt too weak.
I had a look at Attack and Defend patterns and found that the AI was structured wrong so decisions were made too slow and with the wrong info.
I restructured the decision making to something like this. (see flow chart)
Each fighter now has a "reaction time", "decision time", "chance of defense" and "chance of attack".
This makes them feel way more responsive.
When choosing an attack action the AI then selects patterns based on first distance then health (does the AI have attacks used only with low or high health). Then the list of available actions are sorted by priority and an action is selected.
Defensive actions are selected based on type of attack and sometimes distance.
I also wanted to simplify the patterns and have fewer of them.
A pattern is a sequence of button, d-pad inputs the AI gets and how long the button press is.
Before they would have pretty long sequences.
Example:
- Back for 0.2 sec.
- South button 0.3 sec.
- Forward 0.4 sec.
- South button 0.3 sec.
- North button 0.3 sec.
This would look great when uninterrupted. But for fighters that can "react to attacks" (from medium difficulty and up) they would get interrupted and they would have to make a new decision mid attack. Or for fighters that won’t react on hit they would sometimes be suck in the sequence and look a bit dumb.
New hit and hurt detection
While working on the AI and watching a lot of AI fighting AI I started noticing that the hit and hurt detection was off. It took me a while but I found out why.
It has now been fixed and combat feels more responsive now.
New AI patterns and rebalancing of fighters
All fighters have now been given new AI patterns that use the new system.
Their speed has also been tweaked to add greater variation.
Also some fighters now have a dive kick.
The low kick and block able attacks
Low attack now works like a Dragon Punch launching an enemy into the air.
It is also an Invincible Attack.
Now that we have invincible attacks some SUPERs like Orwells van of friends are now invincible since it can be avoided by jump.
Other SUPERS like Christie's Line for lighting are still blockable.
Color Variation to Enemies
I’ve also added some new color variations to the enemies.
New rules
Persistent health doing a run.
The biggest change to the game is that now you keep the health you have after a fight. No more getting free health after each fight. This makes the Health cards way more important.
The health cards have also been boosted a bit to not make it too punishing.
There is now a shop open from day 1, so you can buy extra health cards from the first night.
New tutorial
With all these new changes a new tutorial was needed.
So I've added an exploration of the combat UI and an introduction to the city.
The next update will focus on enemy fighters, city activities and the length of the demo.