100 and 1 Heroes - RPG RTS

Updated!

100 and 1 Heroes is a RPG RTS that lets the player command an army of up to 100 unique soldiers which all have their own inventory, class, race, stats, skills and traits. The game focusses on fighting large battles in which the player controls an army of individuals that choose their own targets, cast their own spells and go where they think they should go. This allows the player to focus on the battle, instead of micromanaging every soldier like most games force you to do.


New videos showing updated combat 2-12-2013: (low framerate and quality due to recording software)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJyATlyejvo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX7paIz71HE

Key features:

- Command up to 100 unique soldiers.
- Fight battles, send your men on quests or send them into dungeons to find loot or gain experience.
- Your men are largely autonomous as they will automatically fight, loot, level up and spend their share of the gold on ale, whores, gear, or whatever else they like.
- Both you and your men use skills that are unique to their class.
- Large battles with up to 300 enemies (or more, have not tested fully yet).
- No more hit points! I have a different HP system which is more realistic, less predictable and more mathmatical and easier to balance than the traditional HP system.
- Lots of projectiles flying around!
- Persistent death. If your men die, they stay dead.

Update 2-12-2013
-Redone animations and models for soldiers to increase framerate and lower drawcalls. Now up to 500 enemies can be active at one time.
-Added more skills for both hero and soldiers.
-Reworked AI to make it behave better in large groups of enemies.
-Added health indicators for soldiers. If they are hurt, a small red cross appears under their feet.
-Adjusted and tweaked all sorts of stuff to make the game run smoother.

 

This seems so very cool!
Will follow this for sure : D

 

Looks very impressive!
What you use for the AI and combat. A ready made asset or you developed your own?

The movements and fighting are so clean and entertaining! Good work!

 

Thank you both. I am using my own code. I wanted to keep it as light as possible to be able to have as many units in screen as possible. Assets tend to be overburdened with extra features which you do not need, which slow down programs.

Edit:
The skeleton and spider models and explosions I have downloaded from the asset store.

 

VERY nice! Similar to a concept I had been toying around with (But much more competently implemented!!!) - LOVE it! PMd

 

I have updated the thread with a new video and some info.

 

Looks intresting, definetly a game I could play. What's the hardware requirements you're aiming with this game?

 

Code (csharp):

1. Looks intresting, definetly a game I could play. What's the hardware requirements you're aiming with this game?

Thanks, I have no idea to be honest. I started out to see how far I could take my machine and how I could make the program run more efficient. I started out with a stuttering game with 100 units on screen, but after a lot of tweaking I have been able to fit over 400 units in at the same time. The main problem I have now is the drawcalls. During peaks they hit up to 1500, which I believe is way too much. A lot of that comes from the models I use for the soldiers, which are far from optimized. I am planning to add a lot more visual effects like spells and eventually I will need sound as well so I am afraid that what I am trying to create is just a bit too much, but time will tell I guess.

 

1500 is not that much frankly. On my machine I start to feel the FPS (under 30) at about 10.000 drawcalls. BTW, my computer is not some monster, it's 2 and half years old. Ofc, I optimized a lot and now I have maximum 2000 draw calls, but at this point it doesn't even blink.

Also, regarding your game, I don't think I would enjoy it that much with more than 50 or 100 units under my control. It would need a lot of micromanagement and also I would lose that special feeling, that each soldier actually matters for me.

Have you tried the dynamic batching that comes with PRO?

 

Yeah, for PC 1500 drawcalls is not a lot.
Keep it up, really looking forward to were this will go : )

 

That is good to know. I thought I had read somewhere that 800 was optimal, but I guess I misread. The plan is to cap the number of troops you can control to 100, but I would love to have massive battles with hundreds of enemies swarming you. I have to try and find a way to make combat less ranged oriented for that to work. I think I am going to add some short range spells, to make combat a bit more flashy and interesting to look at.

I'm not using pro atm, but if I am going to continue with this, I will have to upgrade.

 

There are three things you should look into to keep drawcalls in check, especially if you will introduce new models, decals, textures etc.

1. Use occlusion culling (if you will have a rich environment)
2. Use texture atlasing for your models, props, terrain etc, so that you can use the dynamic batching of PRO
3. Use LOD levels for your units (for example if you zoom out with the camera, your units will switch to a low poly version of the model and when you zoom in it will switch to the high poly version)

I really like your game idea and I'm looking forward to see it flourish!

 

Hi All,

I have added two new videos on YouTube to show my progress.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJyATlyejvo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX7paIz71HE

The first video is a large battle with a group of 200 enemies. The second video is a battle with 3 different groups of enemies.

I feel the combat system is almost done and I should start focussing on building an actual game around it. I would like to hear your opinions on what I have so far.

 

Looks really cool man, nice work! It looks like it's definitely achieving your plan for it - lots of individuals doing their own thing in a large scale fight, it's great to watch

I would say that the actions that the fighters perform could be a little... 'tighter'. What I mean by that is, if you follow one guy as hes running around fighting, there seems to be a lot of downtime in between actions - I followed one guy fighting a skeleton toward the edge of the big group (in the first video you posted), and after an attack he seemed to do nothing for about 1 - 2 seconds before attacking again / charging towards other ones.
Not a huge problem, but if you could make those transitions between actions faster I think it would really improve the look of the individual fights

 

Thanks for the compliments. Could you tell me at what time it is in the video? I can't find it. They shouldn't be doing that.

 

Still looking great.

Q - What happens when the leader gets killed? (Enemy mainly) Do they still behave as a formed group or spear off independently?

Developing your army from a handful of followers with rubbish equipment to a fully fledged force with great gear has potential! How many 'classes' do you have? (Melee and spell casters only? Healers/protection?) Will it be something you can direct/choose for individuals or will they choose their own paths?

 

Right now nothing happens when their leader dies, but I will make them flee in the future.

I have about 14 classes so far, but I am not really sure how I should build the class and leveling system. I want every soldier to decide for themselves where to allocate stats and what skills to choose when they level. I made a mix of melee, ranged and casters/healers. Melee and ranged can both be dps, healers and casters. Some skills will be limited to ranged classes, and others to melee, but I plan to have as much of a mix as possible.

 

very nice / interesting

cant wait for asset

 

Awesome! I would love to test a webplayer.

 

Looks great! I'd to try it!

 

Thanks. Unfortunately, I had to abandon it, because of the sheer size of the project. It was just too much for me alone. I also made some bad design choices that meant I had to do much of it all over again. I still like the general idea though and I hope I can continue it at a later stage.

 

very nice

 

Really understand you. I had the same project - enough big for one, and with some bitter mistakes in desing.

 

That's how we learn

 

Fluzing, why don't you make it simpler? Quality vs quantity and sometimes less is more, etc...
I can't understand why you think it's too large. With a game like yours is easy to joggle with systems and combine / drop them how you see fit.

I for one i'm very interested in the combat and AI. What are you planning to do with those?

 

Even if I made it simpler, I am just a programmer. My graphics skills are poor and animating is hell to me

I was close to finishing the combat system and the AI was simple but effective, but all the other stuff like items, models, maps etc are not up my alley. I am working on a different project right now, which is more promising and simpler. Hope to be able to show that in a few months.