Hello there! Ive been working quietly and diligently on my map and it is time i call out to the wonderful(lol..) forum that will surely give me more information than I could ever desire or understand. Lemme start off by saying...JESUS CHRIST ive got a big project on my hands and if anyone would like to help ease the pain..please...please do so..

er..anyway:
MORALE
Anyone who has played the 'Warriors' Games by Koei are familier with the morale in the game. the secret percentage that dictates how well your soldiers feel in battle. Well i had the idea of bringing that into the game for a few reasons..but ill get to that later.

My Idea is to use a Death Counter from 1 to 100 to set centain percentages in combat like:
HP of units comming out of the spawnner. if the DC is at 56: Units wiill have 56% HP. both sides will have this effect and different things can influence it such as:

Supply routes arriving safely, Heroes killing lots of units at a time, advancing in the battlefield and whatever else..

But how do i set this up? What else can I do? i want to flesh out Morale as much as I can..

also..Im sick of reading Sun Tsu's the Art of War. I need new age ideas... thanks guys!

You could also make it so it's possible to lose morale. For instance, if your hero dies that would cause your troops to be discouraged. I'm not really sure how you could go around setting this system up. Maybe like you already suggested

Perhaps have some capture-able "Morale Booster" area that springs a morale point once every so often. Capturing any type of base could raise morale a bit, and losing one can lower morale. Just some ideas .

I recommend the units starting on say, 50% morale or something, And then you can either go up or down, depending on certain factors. A hero could also bolster the morale of your soldiers.

How to set up?

You might have to make 100 triggers for every % of morale you have (might be easier if you made less stages of morale e.g. just 20 or something). But don't fear, using the copy triggers it will take no time. A helpful method i use is make a location on some isolated part of the map, which is where a) your units' HP is modified, b) teleported back to the battlefield. It can also be used for creating mass units.

Another idea is you could make morale the main goal of the game, meaning that everything you do is to get more morale.

Anything.

Capturing an additional base/fortress gives morale per minute, losing said base ends the "over time" bonus. Fortresses that are more "strategic" give bigger bonuses, but cause a morale loss [as well as ending the "over time" bonus] if it's lost. Umm, upgrading your spawner [if possible] gives a slight boost. I'm running outta stuff. Successful defense of a crucial point gives big bonus... Ok, yeah, that's it. Lemme know if you got anything you like outta that or need a better explanation.

EDIT: Sorry I kinda build upon Inferno's idea in the beginning. No hard feelings, eh?

Wow, i wasnt expecting this many replies! Well thanks guys..here we go!

i have a couple built in things about the game that could raise or lower morale...
Supply ships that have to cross certain terrain every so often will bring morale +1
Everytime a hero dies, lower or raise morale for the side(since two sides are playable)
There are certain classes that can raise or lower morale as a special: Like the Spy can 'Disrupt' Enemy Supply Ships which will cause a loss in morale.
The Guardian of Force has "Victory March" where the entire force will gain +5 morale and march towards the nearest enemy base
what else..I dont want to have bases boosting morale because that could get out of hand..Perhaps ill set certain bases to heal units...
i dont know! heh..ill work on it later tonight..but.. i still need some ideas on how to make this work.

the BIG question: How else can morale Influence the battle..other than HP?

Perhaps you could periodically cause troops to stop randomly, depending on your morale. Lower morale, troops stop more often. It can and will affect the outcome of the game, but it doesn't look too professional, and is annoying as hell.

HP shouldn't be affected by morale. Things like Movement speed, Attack Rate, dmg.. That is affected by morale.

Think about it: You aren't physically hurt by a bad morale, or if you are depressed. Your zeal is hurt though, and when you have less zeal, you swing your sword with less speed, less strength, and you don't run, you walk.
Do you ever see kids bolting to school every day? That's poor morale at work. Their health isn't bad, or else they wouldn't physically be at school, they'd be at home, sick.

Also, morale isn't JUST affecting the entire crowd, or group of soldiers all at once. Some suffer from low morale, and some benefit from high morale. It's just natural that some people are more zealous about what they're doing than others... It's just life, and diversity amongst humans; we aren't all clones. Sure, most kids won't really give their 100% in school, but don't you always get that one kid who literally does EVERY SCRAP OF WORK??? That person has a higher morale than others. You should take account for that population in your map.

What I suggest you do is have a series of locations. About 5 or 6 should do... ranging from 4x4 to 10x10 would be good. This way, you can take account for things that are more noticeable, and things that are less. A Hero Death might be not as noticeable as a Supply Ship or something Exploding, because there's tons of people dying (if it's a real war). Not all of the ships are asploding everywhere around you. However, the Hero's death may be stronger, so it should impact the units around him more.

For the "Affecting Certain units at Certain times", I really think a system where you have heroes is best. A vulture (Cavalier, or Knight, or something) could be replaced by a Jim Raynor ( A Cavalier with faster attack) when a good thing happens within that location radius. Horses aren't really affected totally by morale (As much as humans, at least). You can increase the attack rate (of the human, per say), and keep the "horse" the same. (Horse being movement speed). You can reserve that for upgrades, like at a "Stable" or something where you upgrade your training of Horse riders, or something.

As for ground troops, you can have things like Jim Raynor be the Zealous type, and the Regular Marine for the Not so zealous type. You could pretty much do this with almost all of the units that have the same hero sprites.
Some units (Like Ghosts) May have more of a gradient as to how "Zealous" They are. You have multiple types of ghosts, right? Why not take advantage of that? Or maybe allow a Ghost to be a Hero? Remember, The Regular Ghost has more range, along with the Regular goliath. They have a range advantage over their hero counter-parts.

Also, you could whore the Spells that SC has to really affect lots of things, because many people who have bad morale recover from it. A thing like a Queen's esnare should be vital to your project.
A TK could also be a bad morale thing, slowing down units around the death.


Now, Let's say you have 2 sides, and they're fighting. They're obviously pushing against eachother for territory, or turf. You could have an overall DC that affects ALL of the units.
Here's a Diagram:
__________________________________________________________________________

------------------------------------->>>> <<<<< --------------------------------------------------------

__________________________________________________________________________

Here you have a battlefield. Right now, everything is evenly set. They're in the middle. (Sorta.)
The Overall DC is a neutral value. (You select something). Overall morale is currently affecting nothing.
-----
Consider something like this:

__________________________________________________________________________

----------->>>> <<<<< --------------------------------------------------------------------------

__________________________________________________________________________


Here you have a sway in the battle, where Blue has gained territory. Now, the soldiers all know where they are, they know how much territory they gained. What you can do here is have a morale boost (or decline) for red.
Maybe something to ... Have a chance at interrupting their attack, maybe? So, every... 5 seconds or so, we make red ally blue, just for a split second or so...

Now, Lets sway it a bit more:

__________________________________________________________________________

-->>>> <<<<< -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

__________________________________________________________________________


Here, we would have a bit more of a problem for red. They're right at the back of their lines, so we take that into account. What we would do here is interrupt their attack for maybe a bit longer, and maybe just throw the interruptions a bit more frequently.
Hell, if you want to, you can even slow down the speed of their Heroes, or a few select units, by using the "move Units" principle, either by moving ALL of the units to the water for a split second (Be careful of interrupting blue's attacks though, you may make him miss his attacks on certain units).

So, there are many different things you can do to "Affect Morale"
If you need more Ideas, ask me, or someone else. I'm sure they can pump you full of stuff.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 9 2009, 2:35 am by Pyro682.

Give morale-boosted units to a computer player with high(er) upgrades. This uses up a lot of computer players though.

Using Triggers to heal, or injure units all around is an overall bad idea. You'll end up healing units that are badly wounded when you're trying to injure them, and you may injure units that you're trying to heal. (Moreso the first than the second)

Actually, one good idea (that I heard from Pyro) is to interrupt the computers attack.
Have one computer ally the other computer for a split second, using DC's to determine when, then you can change the DC settings for how high or low the morale is.
Really quick:
If you had 100 moral, they could ally the opposing computer every 100 DC's.
Same for 99 moral at 99 DC's.
etc.

(Credit goes to Pyro here. I just simplified it a little)

Ok, i like where this is going...i had the original idea to flux the HP of units based on the feeling of Emptyness and Fullness of troops. The percentage of HP might not go to like...1% but maybe as low as 25%. Consider that troops that get injured are going to return to headquarters for healing. after so long they will get sent back out, so..if their morale is lower than usual they arent going to be up to fighting as well..so..
i really thought that was a novel idea

OK so..i think that if one side starts to prevail over the other and if i use Pyro's idea to halt troops movement now and then it will be a little too much of a cripple..but i guess that's war. all of this crippling done by the morale system and the over powered heroes might mean ill have to once again over-power the basic units. I want unitVSunit combat to be longer than just a few seconds of killing...
yar, it would be easier if you knew the map like i did.

im...uh..running out of steam and concentration..

Would be cool if it didn't eat up units like a Devourer Zerglings/involve awkward trigger setups like the mentioned ally-unally system.
However, I think that this is one of the places where "realism" can take a hit for sake of gameplay and implementation.
And anyways, emotional state does have some affect on one's vitality. A person who is depressed and sees little in a war is less likely to stand to absolute physical exhaustion against bodily damage.
Provide some information, maybe? xP

"Desperation"? When a team starts to near complete defeat, their morale receives a really large boost. It may not be the normal thing, but forces beating absurd odds as loss draws imminent isn't unheard of, and it provides a nice balance to the problem you just mentioned.

there we go! I like that idea...someone agreeing with me...heheh
OH. i used to keep a small blog about my progress on the Website:
http://www.staredit.net/topic/7036/
But because no one showed interest i slowed updates to a deathly crawl..you can find me on the BNET room "op sen" alot but..even that is discouraging as no one is there to help me test... If you ARE interested in helping me(and all i need are testers...) then send me a Private message! Ive been running this show solo forever and it would be nice..

alrighty, take care guys: i think ill include some of the ideas here tommoorrooww. too late tonight...thanks!

I like your original idea. The other people's ideas are too complicated.

You'd need 100 triggers per type of unit to do it though. Macrotrig would make this really easy if you knew how to use macrotrig (I certainly don't lol)

I still stand by my system.
-Editing HP would glitch a lot, and it doesn't make sense to change HP.
-Sure, it eats up units, but it's not like he's gonna need many of them. It's just a clashing of two sides. You need Heroes, (16[+2] Units), and The Bases. All you've got left are the suppliers and the 2 sides. I think it's worth it for the Morale system; It'd add so much more.
-I don't think it's too complicated. It's a relatively simple system. It's even simpler for the player, they just play with it, they don't create the trigs.
-I really like the "Desperation" twist that EzDay128 threw in. You should add it along with my system.
-The Interuptions of Force Attacks/Movement won't affect it to bring all of the units to a total stop. It's not constant, and it doesn't have to be really frequent at all. It won't totally toss the battle over to one side.

-I'll be willing to help you out with testing the morale system. I might (If I have time, I've got 3 pojects on my hands) help you trigger the system a bit, too.

Editing Hp really wouldn't be that difficult just elaborate.... lets say you focus on the spawned units/ And make each moral variable based off like a classroom grade (tets= 30%, HW + 15 % and ect.
So lets say that you have 3 variables. Hero Kills (40%), Unit kills(10%), Post Captured (50%) and moral at 50 is normal, meaning that every percentage starts at half its value.
Each percentage of each variable is a different unit. So Heroes can be Goli turret, and the other two will be different. Now make those into Death Counters. Then have triggers to convert each variable to Death values, then from there convert it into the Custom Leader board, which would be your moral
I think that would work, but not positive

I don't know if you'll want to use this too: but it was my take on morale.

In CW Tactics, I had it set up so that the troops that see you defeat an enemy hero get a morale boost, and what that does is fully heal them. So like, I had a medium-sized location. And when Hero Red kills Hero Blue, all red's troops get their HP restored to maximum. That way, if there is an intense battle going on (Red troops vs Blue troop) and Red kill's Blue's General (The Hero), then Red's troops have a much larger advantage over blue's troops because of a morale boost.

Still... You're mixing Trigger HP with Real Damage HP.
These units are fighting eachother.
For Example, lets say you have a total of 6 units. (3 to a side). On the left, the unit HP amounts are 10%, 25%, and 50%. Let's not worry about the right ones.
Now, lets say that the left side suffers from a Morale Loss. Right now, the DC for morale is at 50%. They just happened to be at the 10%, 25%, and 50% marks because the two sides are fighting. Let's say that the morale effect cuts down their HPs by 10%. Now, The HP should be 40%. (For morale). However, when you set all the units there to 40% HP, you actually heal the 10% and the 25% units. This is an HP glitch.
In essence, it literally doesn't fit. You cannot mix these two ways of affecting HP. The units that are fighting will Edit the HP and then make the Morale/HP system glitch up like hell. It simply cannot and will not work. It may work for some units, but not even close to half of the units it affects.

Besides, it still doesn't make sense to lose HP due to a lack of Morale. In all my life, I've never suffered from spontaneous bruising or bleeding from being depressed.
Sure, "Emos" may cut themselves, but if you're about to suggest that an Entire Army is Emo, and they ALL cut themselves, then you are seriously mistaken.

You're fitting the wrong jigsaw piece into the wrong spot.

alright guys, time to move on, ive decided AND PLUS
I set the % of HP for units at the spawn location so that it doesnt mess with them outside. i thought ahead...

jeesh, none of my other topics recieved this kind of attention...
Wait until SC2 to get into real indepth Morale systems. ill make a new unit for every 100 points.