Formulaic approach to enemy stats?

[TheoAllen]

Strictly speaking, the formula is straightforward. And all you need is how many turns/actions until you win the battle?

If your character deals 50 damage, and you have 4 of them. Then the damage output is 200
If you want them to last for 2 turns, then you need them to have an HP total of 400.
If you also use defense, then put them into the factor as well.
If you want to speed up the battle then design the skill that deals more damage. (i.e: 100)
If all the characters use the skill, then it will end in 1 turn.

However, applying this formula is boooooring.
Designing a game is not about crunching numbers. it is about designing a good "puzzle" to solve. You are not going to put a formula in the enemy's action and reaction. You design them, like when you do art. Yes, designing a game is a form of art.

 

[LightBorneX]

Something to consider- if you are going to have stat rolls that compare enemy stats to player stats, it might seem more realistic to keep even level enemies with stats closer to what players have, because you would probably want some enemies to have higher stats than the players at times (like a leprechaun enemy having higher luck). By lowering enemy health, base atk, and base def, it keeps the enemies stats from overpowering the players.

I plan on having formulas for everything, including having formulas so that each stat is relatively equal in power. It will take a while though.

One way you can use a formula for stats is to not worry about player armors or skills at that point- just balance the health and stats going up in levels first, then you can increase base def to match player equip, and alter skills to balance player skills, or do some combination of it. By only balancing stats to stats, you keep that section of the game balanced.

As an example, in the game I'm working on, player hit and dodge go up 1 point each player level gained, and the same goes for enemies. At the same time, players are getting extra stat points they can put into dodge, so I need to counter that by increasing the stat points that enemies are getting for their hit stat. This keeps the even level challenge balanced. It also allows me to say that at lv 50 X enemy will have Y stat points, and I can choose to make some enemies fully offensive, some fully defensive, and others do strange things. When combined with skills, I think it will add a nice chunk of challenge to the game.