What is Member Battles

What is Member Battles?

Member Battles is a reincaration of an old modification I made for SMF 1.x, where Members could poke other Members using colorful messages, inline at the bottom of a Post. It was created to give some functionality to the old Karma system, and used Karma as a sort of Health meter. Slowly over time, members wanted to do more than just "slap" other members, so weapons were added, along with a built-in dice roller, and then damage values were added. Before too long, Magical Spells were added that really gave some flair to these, relatively harmless lines of text. Members loved it.

Today we have Member Battles, an unofficial extension to the XenForo platform, that's built on the back of a couple other extensions. Leveraging XenForo's powerful template layering system, I have been able to beautify the text descriptions, and add with years of dabbling with PHP development experinece, the Member Battles system has been worked to be an additional layer of eye-candy that's been added on top of Posts.

How do I use Member Battles?

There are two modes to the Member Battles system, and each one behaves slightly differently. In short, Arena Battles will take you to a dedicated Board to combat, while Inline Attacks will allow you to jab another member. You may have an oppotunity to win Prizes using both modes. However, you need to do a couple of things to prepare for Battle before you'll be able to fully use the Member Battle system.

Preparation to Battle!

What? you think you can just barge into the Arena and pick somebody to throw around? Nah. First, you need a Battle Token! You'll have to purchase one from the Shop (located under Forum -> Shop, at the top of site). This link will take you directly to the Shop Category where you can get initialized, shall we say. Once you have your Battle Token, be sure to configure it to use the Role Playing System you're most comfortable with.

Next you'll want to beef up your Member-Character (that's you). To do this, you'll need Stat Tokens. Just like in any other Table Top Role Playing Game (TTRPG), these define the numerical statistics and abilities for your character definition. In other words, it makes the math possible. Anyway, Stats are mostly what defines how good you are in Battle. They're needed to calculate things like Health, how much Damage you'll do as well as a bunch of other non-specified things.

Eventually, you'll probably grow tired of just throwing punches around. And we got a solution for that. Again, powered by the Shop, you can purchase weapons, special attacks, spells, and even special abilities to give your Battles some pizazz! Now that you've got your Member-Character configured, let's Battle!

Arena Battles

Everyday that you log-in to Prismatica, you're given some Arena Tokens. Once you have some Arena Tokens, you'll be able to participate in the Arena. I'm going to warn you, you're not going crazy, but eventually, you'll start seeing images of random anime characters floating on your screen. That's your ticket to get into the Arena-- but first you gotta capture that character, and it's not as easy as it looks. Clicking on one of these anime characters does a couple of things. First, it throws you into the Arena against a random Archived Member. These battles are fairly automated, and winning one will result in a special Battle Prize or Lumina awarded. All Arena Battles take place in a dedicated Board, which so happens to be named the Battle Arena. And although initially, the Battle is between two members, other members can be invited into a battle by using the Inline Attack mode. You may freely reply within these topics as well.

Your Member-Character may continue fighting in Rounds, in the same Thread (as a Reply) or start a new Thread, if the Member Battle System has chosen a new opponent for you to fight. Currently, the only way to invoke an Arena Battle is by clicking on the floating images of anime characters. And you'll continue to fight random Archived Members until you either run out of Energy or Health.

Inline Attacks

These are special one-shot attacks directed at targeted Member-Characters. You may invoke an Inline Attack in any designated Board, which will result in a special footer being appended to the bottom of your Post. To activate this feature, you must have a Battle Token in your Inventory.

Activating the Inline Attack is simple. Much like how XenForo allows you to Tag members using the @MemberName, you can activate the Inline Attack function by using the carot: ^MemberName. This will generate a handy pop-up selector of other Members you may virtually assault against. Note that any member, regardless of their assigned MemberGroup are fair game. Upon choosing a Member, then you'll be prompted to pick an attack. Everybody has access to Unarmed, which may randomly choose from options such as Bare Fists, Folding Chairs, or even a Dinner Table, just like in a typical Shoujo anime! If you've purchased Items from the Shop, then you'll also have access to weapons that do more damage, as well as Special Abilities, and Spells that can possibly level entire city blocks.

There are some precautions built-in with the Inline Attacks to prevent completely oblitering other Members. Some attacks have built-in cool-down timers. Beyond that, if an Opponent's Health or Energy has been reduced to zero (0), then, they will not be listed in the Battle Chooser list until they have regained some of their depleted Stat, or the cool-down timer has expired.

Regeneration

Member Battles has been designed to avoid the Death Spiral of defeat. Every member is operating on a built-in timer that regenerates expended Health and Energy. There are also Attributes that allow for faster Regeneration that may be purchased as well.

Definitions

Account: The thing that you log into Prismatica with.

Archived Member: This is a regular member who has been inactive for a minumim of 180 days. If you've found your Account to demoted into an Archived Status, you may revive it automatically at any time, simply by logging in to Prismatica. Note that while Archived Members aren't being controlled by human beings, they are continuing to improve their Stats through pre-programmed subroutines.

Member-Character: A statistical geenration of you as virtual character. Each member may only have one Character attached to thier Account.

Prismatica: This website. An anime role playing realm, typically known as Paradise, Heaven, or Valhalla.

Round: A series of combat exchanges performed in the Arena.

Frequently Asked Questions

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