Thread: Game Combat: Fighting one enemy at a time? (Issue with static/non-static?)

Hello again.

So I'm making a combat system for a game I'm working on.
The combat is basically like old-school Runescape's, where the 2 participating combatants take turns hitting each other.
Except, in this game, I'm trying to make it so you can only fight one enemy at a time, no matter what. I'm trying to
make so if you're fighting a mob and you try to attack another, your action is ignored and you continue your current fight.

I'd post the code I have, but it is such a mess with all the booleans and other variables being
in other classes that I'd have to post the whole project itself.

Here's the sequence I have:

1. I try to fight an enemy. (Once I'm in their "fight radius" and press space)
2. They fight me back. (Executes their combat-style method, in this case, non-hostile)
3. I walk away and try to fight another enemy.
(I'm still in the other enemy's "chase radius" and they follow me as I try to attack another enemy)
4. I'm able to fight the other enemy, resulting in a 1 vs 2 fight.
(The second enemy executes the same non-hostile combat method to fight back)

I don't want that. This is my goal:

1. I try to fight an enemy. (Once I'm in their "fight radius" and press space)
2. They fight me back. (Executes their combat-style method, in this case, non-hostile)
3. I walk away and try to fight another enemy.
(I'm still in the other enemy's "chase radius" and they follow me as I try to attack another enemy)
4. I'm unable to start another fight because I'm already fighting a different mob.
(The second enemy just ignores as the enemy I attacked first walks up to me and continues to attack until I kill it or run away)

Is this because of static/non-static methods and values? Instances?
I tried everything but I cannot get this 1-enemy-per-fight limit to work.

I know this is a seriously complicated situation, but does anyone know any solutions?
Let me know if I have to provide more info. O-o

Do you have at least an idea of which part of your code needs to be tweaked? Seems to me that when you press space to fight there could be a boolean, let's call it isFighting, which determines if you engage the enemy or not. When requirements are met such as killing the opponent or perhaps out running them it goes back to false and you can again attack something.

Ah, yes. I have a feeling it has to do with my boolean "fighting."
It is set to false to begin with, until I start fighting anything. Then turns back to false when I run away.
(I didn't add a health system yet, so my only option to turn "fighting" off is to run)

"fighting" is non-static, which I think is why I'm able to fight more than one enemy.
I want to make "fighting" static so I'm only fighting one enemy, but then every enemy of
the same fight-style goes after me if "fighting" is true. So that seems like a bad idea to make it static.

I think I need a way to tell if there are more than 1 instances of "fighting" being equal to true
or something along those lines.
I don't know. That is the closest thing I can think of right now.

Is this because of static/non-static methods and values? Instances?

Maybe Sunspots.

So that seems like a bad idea to make it static.

Correct.

I think I need a way to tell if there are more than 1 instances of "fighting" being equal to true

I think you're over thinking it. As KucerakJM said, if a fighter is engaged in a fight, fighting is true. To keep the fighter engaged in the same fight, the object being fought should be identified as an instance variable, and only that opponent can be fought until the fighter disengages, fighting changes to false, and the object being fought is cleared, ready to accept a new opponent.

Originally Posted by GregBrannon

To keep the fighter engaged in the same fight, the object being fought should be identified as an instance variable

Ahh, objects, the things I never really knew how to work with.
I tried to look up some tuts about objects and instances, but nothing really helped much.

Nooby question time:
Where would I identify the object? In the mob's nonHostile() method? In the Mob class?

How would I use the instance of that enemy to check if there are other instances of the same type of mob?

Would I be using instanceof at all?

I'm 100% out of ideas for this, but all I can think of is random things like:
"currentEnemy.add"
"if (enemy == currentEnemy) fighting = true; etc."
"if (enemy != currentEnemy) just walk around, etc."

So, in short, I don't really know what that means.
I tried using the mob type object as a parameter for the non-hostile method, but I didn't get very far.
Didn't know what to do.

Ahh, objects, the things I never really knew how to work with.

Then, 1) Why are you using an OOP language?, or 2) Why don't you learn to use your chosen tool properly?

Mob, Fighter, Enemy should all be separate classes, perhaps extensions of another basic class that contains attributes common to all game characters. To accomplish what I described, an instance of class Fighter, therefore a Fighter object, would have an instance variable that contains the current object being fought, perhaps named 'opponent', which is an instance of Enemy. While fighter.fighting = true, any other object (enemy, mob, whatever) will be ignored because they are not the same as the current fighter.opponent. (Note that class names are capitalized, instances of a class, or objects, have names that begin with lowercase letters.)

This is basic OOP stuff that you should know how to do. Take a few months to learn your chosen tool better.