Combat Systems & Creature Encounters

Saints Gaming features Saints Hybrid Combat: a signature hybrid model uniting seamless real-time overworld MMO combat (Hero Battles, inspired by RuneScape and Diablo) with tactical turn-based creature battles (Saints Buddy Battles, inspired by Pokémon and Cassette Beasts).

[!NOTE] Saints Hybrid Combat allows players to roam the open world engaging in live hack-and-slash or spellcasting MMO combat, while also exploring tall grass, caves, and wild habitats to encounter and capture companion creatures in dedicated turn-based tactical duels.

1. Real-Time Overworld Hero Battles

Hero Battles occur seamlessly across live maps without instanced loading transitions:

• Action Hotbar (Hotbar.tsx): 8 configurable hotbar slots bound to keys 1–8 or touch pad taps, mapped to melee strikes, spells, consumables, and wards.
• Target Frame (target-frame.tsx): Selecting an enemy or peer locks targeting, displaying health bars, combat level, element type, and status buffs.
• Floating Combat Text (FCT): Renders dynamic damage numbers, critical strikes (gold), misses (gray), and healing (green) with upward drift and alpha fade.
• Authoritative Cooldowns: Client radial swipes reflect ability cooldowns validated server-side by the Go socket backend (:3001).

Physical Damage = Max(1, Floor((Attacker.Strength × WeaponPower) / (Defender.Defence × 0.5)))

2. Instanced Saints Buddy Battles

Stepping onto wild grass tiles (Logic Tag 4) or challenging trainers triggers instanced creature battles:

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                   Creature Battle Screen                 │
│                                                          │
│  [Wild Ignifox Lv 14]            HP: [========  ] 80/100 │
│  Type: Fire                      Status: None            │
│                                                          │
│  [Active Aquashell Lv 16]        HP: [==========] 120/120│
│                                                          │
│  ┌──────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ ┌──────────────────┐  │
│  │ 💧 Water Gun │ │ 🛡️ Shell Ward│ │ 💎 Throw Crystal │  │
│  └──────────────┘ └──────────────┘ └──────────────────┘  │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

• Speed Resolution: The creature with higher Speed (SPD) acts first in the turn queue.
• Shiny Variants (shiny.ts): Wild encounters roll a rare chance ($1/512$ base or $1/4096$ standard) for sparkling particle crowns and alternative palette textures.

3. Creature Capture Mechanics & Formulations

Capturing wild beasts requires Binding Crystals. The capture probability formula evaluates the target's current vitality, crystal potency, and status impairments:

$$\text{Capture Rate} = \frac{(3 \times \text{MaxHP} - 2 \times \text{CurrentHP}) \times \text{CrystalBonus} \times \text{StatusBonus}}{3 \times \text{MaxHP}}$$

[!TIP] Weakening a wild beast below $20%$ HP while applying Sleep or Freeze maximizes capture chance, especially when utilizing high-tier Prismatic Crystals.

4. Elemental Matchup Matrix

Abilities and creature typings follow an elemental multiplier matrix (elementMatchups.ts):