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Battle System
The battle system for Midior Shower consists of half of the game. During a battle, a player's Cleffian will utilize their magical connection with the musical underpinning of the universe to cast motifs and fell their enemies in epic battles. The system itself aims to facilitate this process as feasibly possible, and it is explained here.
The first things that occurs when a battle starts is determining who acts first. To do so, the innate sign of both player and enemy are compared to the sign of the piece of the battle. Whichever entity is closest in order to the sign of the song goes first. Here are a few examples demonstrating who would open in various situations:
1 Aries
2 Taurus
3 Gemini
4 Cancer
5 Leo
6 Virgo
7 Libra
8 Scorpio
9 Saggitarius
10 Capricorn
11 Aquarius
12 Pisces
CASE A
Player Sign: Signs.Pisces
Enemy Sign: Signs.Sagittarius
Piece:
id: 'b4b455bf-cb64-4aea-9537-73792cb8bdcf'
sign: Signs.Aries
tempo: 120
assets:
song:
title: "Example Title"
artist: "Example Artist"
file: /path/to/file
art:
title: "Example Title"
artist: "Example Artist"
file: /path/to/file
Outcome:
The player's sign is Pisces, which has a value of 12. The enemy has a sign of Sagittarius, which has a value of 9. The song's sign is Aries, which has a value of 1. In this case, the player is only a distance of 1 from the song, while the enemy is 4. This means that the player will go first.
_Note: in the event that both the layer and the enemy are the same distance from the song's sign, the first entity to hit the key corresponding to the song's sign will go first.
Once the first actor is decided, they begin their turn with half of their solo gauge ticking down. While the solo gauge is going down, the character is said to be "repping" (IOW "representing their transmusical ability). During this time, their transmutation circle of fifths will become fully opaque, and the player may enter motifs via MIDI input or by clicking or touching the inner circles with signs.
When a character enters a combination of notes that matches a motif, a judgment system determines the efficacy of the spell. If the combination of keys is invalid, the transmutation circle of fifths will fizzle, and an inspiration penalty will be inflected on the caster. If the combinations matches, however, a scoring system is used to determine what sort of an effect will occur. Every motif has a maximum potential effect, but that actual effect that occurs depends on the accuracy of the input.
Listed next are the various categories of consideration.
1. Relation to Sign [7-50 points]
If a piece's sign is ♈︎, the cast motif should be of the same sign. If it matches, points for the category are 50. If it doesn't match, the distance between the input sign and the correct sign is calculated. Assuming the player accidentally plays in the sign of ♊, the numerical difference between ♊ (5) and ♈︎ (1) is 4. As the minimum points rewarded can be 5 (which occurs when the exact opposite sign is used at a distance of 6), each subsequent note subtracts 7 from the maximum. In this case, 4 * 7 = 28, 50 - 28 = 22 points received.
2. Relation to Tempo [7-35 points]
Every piece has a tempo that determines how often the beat occurs. When a player casts a motif and presses the first sign, a timer begins for one second. Each subsequent keypress that occurs before the second elapses resets the timer and adds another sign to the sequence. Once no more inputs have been made for a sequence, the transmutation circle plays back the pattern. To match the tempo, the player has a few options.
a. Playing in time.
Assuming the piece has a tempo of 88 BPM, the player can utilize the faint metronome to safely enter their motif at 88 BPM. If the user is within +/- 1 of the BPM, they score the full amount of 35 points. As they become further and further from the correct BPM in either a positive or negative direction, the efficacy of the category deteriorates.
b. Playing in double time.
Using the same 88 BPM song, the player can instead choose to use "double time." This means they can instead enter their motif aiming for 176 BPM, though they will not have that advantage of a built-in metronome to do so. As soon as the entered BPM passes half of the piece's BPM, is is instead compared with the double-time amount of 176. To clarify:
Case A: For 88 BPM piece, player plays motif at 121 BPM. They are 33 BPM of out of a possible 43, giving them a ratio of about 0.23. Multiplying 0.23 times the maximum possible value of 35 results in a value of 8 points.
Case B: For the same 88 BPM piece, player plays motif at 138 BPM. Because this number is higher than the base BPM of the piece (88) plus half of the base BPM (88 + 44 = 132), the player is judged against the second tier of playing speed. In this example, double time would be 88 * 2 = 176 BPM, and 176 - 138 = 38. The player is still off, but they were compared against a higher number.
The trade-off of double time is simple: by playing faster you can get more motifs out during a single solo, but you stand a chance of being far off and having less effect while wasting valuable inspiration. It's a tough decision to make.
3. Stale Solo [1-15 points]
As a player utilizes various motifs in a fight, it is imperative to keep up different motifs and not fall into a single pattern. To encourage variety and strategy, there is a penalty for reusing the same motif in too short of a time span. The first time a motif is used in a given cycle, it automatically receives the maximum 15 points. If used again right afterward, it's already down to 10. Casting a motif in between will bump the next cast to 13, but it's good to study a variety of rotations to avoid excessive spendature on inspiration.
4. Combining the Outcome
After calculating part 1 (7-50 points), part 2 (7-35 points) and part 3 (1-15 points), the motif attempt clocks in at a score value between 15 and 100 points. On a level 1 difficulty chamber, anything less than 21 points results in a backfire (which damages both amplitude and inspiration on the casting player), and anything greater than 75 points results in a critical strike (which immediately increases the motif's effect by 50% and sometimes causes a unique effect to occur. As the difficulty level of the chamber increases, however, the minimum and maximum values for points increases (making it easier to backfire and harder to critically strike). At the highest level, anything less than 45 is a backfire while critical strikes only occur at over 96 points.
After the first turn occurs, the second occurs in much the same fashion. Sometime, enemies will retreat (giving you the victory and an inspiration boost, but causing you to lose out on any loot. The battle will rage back and forth until eventually the enemy or the player decoheres, signalling the end of the battle.
A. If the enemy is vanquished, the player gains a bit of inspiration (based on how many beings are singing their praise back on the homeworld) and some potential loot (i.e. remnants or curious). The player may then continue further into the chamber, or return home if desired.
B. If the player reaches 0 inspiration or <5% of their amplitude, the player instead decoheres back home, resulting in the loss of all reward founding during that session.
C. Alternatively, the player may purposely decohere to escape the fight, and in doing so maintains a chance of keeping some of the currency they found in the chamber (thought items and followers are forfeit).
Assuming the player wins the battle, their amplitude is immediately restored, as well as a small amount of inspiration. They may then continue as normal.