since my fetish lies close to this, ill excuse myself to hitchhike without permission...
concept: challenging goal I think. high ai is difficult to make, but also not as recommended in musso games due to realism of 1 vs many. kinda like why archers are meme in the series, it is very unfair to be outnumbered, and ai properly taking chances to attack makes game extremely difficult. to balance this would require some sort of constant healing from combat, otherwise you have doom issue of 'all these strong demons are no threat as they have projectiles I can dodge, but man, these zombies, they only do 1 dmg but they can't be dodged.'
though, I do think it can be done in really well thought out design. Like GURPS had interesting idea of forcing all individual enemies' first attack to miss the player, so that they can engage in combat without dumb cheerleading, but also give player a chance to react to attacks from blind spots.
now later on graphics you implied it will be a side scroller, which makes it difficult to have large quantity of foes due to lack of camera rotation, hence lack of playing field. also if they wont do walk in from off map or jump down, their spawning mechanism would be odd as player has no blind spot. (though even games with blindspot like musso games casually uses mob teleporting in anyways.)
and this also have good chance of sprite clutter, so player may question how are these foes able to beat me up without accidentally hitting each other.
system: would suggest something like projectiled foes, so girls getting launched or knocked down can hit other girls. simple punching off balanced girl for knock downs may get prevented due to other girl catching them, where as proper launch may cause domino effect. once downed, as you say, they will be protected, but perhaps in a form of low priority. so if a girl standing still is within the attack box, that girl will take the hit so the downed girl has chance to get up instead of getting stomped on.
I would say knocking out a foe in a punch isn't too unrealistic, though odds would likely require professional punching a regular bystander, not trained combatant... haha. I can see high ai being used for this, where instead of traditional ai of always roam near player and attack on cooldown, they will run to edge of screen and lean on object or sit down to regenerate. making themselves vulnerable to flying projectiled girls. and lastly add in trauma stage, so if girl takes way too much damage at once, even when she recovers health, she will be permanently (assuming fight wont last more than 4 hrs of in game time.) weakened due to blunt trauma / bleeding.
could be interesting if foes can off balance themselves through use of strong attack, special move, and dodging player's attack. Even though they are trained professionals, some moves will be high risk high reward, and player could catch that to turn it around. They will be drawn to react based on direction of getting attack from player, might as well use it more so that they themselves can move in those directions as well.
lastly, though myself have trouble with this, I have been given advice before as well, that it is much easier to start project and get help by having conflict and resolution first, than how. means have plot and character before game mech. was kind of weird idea originally, but the guy giving me advice said makes sense to make a game that fits the need, but hard to make a game then try to find a need.
so example could be like 'player controls character who has to defeat numerous hordes of enemy to progress' short, almost same as gameplay description, but now it has plot and a character. Hope this weird advice also helps in a way, if not, discard this part.
I agree with you about the musou-type game. Dynasty Warriors 4 balances what you mean quite well. Enemy AI attacks very frequently but the player still can fight back..
My purposed game will be mostly hand-to-hand fight, therefore, enemy's damage is low and long range attack is few and can be dodged. I also have a similar idea as GURPS, when the enemy attacks the player, the player's character does not perform attack movement, the player's character automatically dodges the enemy's first attack and the player can use special counter attack during the progress.
For the heal mechanism, re-generating health very slowly when not in combat works to the player's character as well and the maximum health bar won't reduce. I also think Street of Rage 4's idea is good, after finishing a group of enemies, the player's health can re-generate certain amount if not get hit shortly. I also would like health items appear more frequently and be real medical items like painkiller, band and spray instead of a chicken from a rubbish bin.
For the map, what I mean is the camera can move and rotate with the player, does not mean the whole map might be in the player's view whole time. I just want the spawning mechanism makes some sense, for example, enemies gather outside the door and then open the door and get in the fight, the player can also get through the opened door, or enemies come with transport like truck or boat, or enemies jump down from windows/hills instead of from the air like Ninja Gaiden or mass teleporting like you speak. The player can know where the enemies come from and how many of them.
For the system, I am quite happy with all your suggestions, they are quite useful and fit my thought. Actually, some of them were left in my character part to improvise.
One-punch knock out does work on weak enemy like street thug in early stage. Still, the majority of enemy girls will be professional combatants.
Different enemy girls will perform different behavior, not just different in statistics and attack movements. Like off-balance we spoke:
-Military girls will be more organised and discipled, they catch off-balanced companion more often and can block player's following attack for her;
-Martial artist girls are more honorable, they intend to fight the player in a one-on-one fair fight, they will not mass the player with numbers or catch fly-projectiled girl, but dodge her, however, once the previous companion is defeated or get away for re-generation, the next one will immediately replace her;
-Wrestler girls are strong enough to catch not only off-balanced, but also flying girl so domino effect does not work on them.
-Some agile enemies like kunoichi can recover from off balance or knocking out quickly, however, their defense is low so strong attacks may kill her directly or making her too painful to do this.
I agree with you that a game fits a need rather than finding a need. I do not play games too often, the whole system thing is to make the player feel more achievable when defeating formidable girls, different difficulty fits different level players.
The basic need of this game are:
-Hot, sexy fight with many bodies.
-Zako girls bravely and willingly fight to death, fighting the player is by their free will and they are ready to die for it, no brainwashing and cheating. Their attitude is honest and serious. Some of them may get away the fight for re-generation, some of them may admit defeat but none of them will run for their lives or beg for mercy.
-The player's characters and zako girls respect each other as opponents. Everything done is for the fight, no torture, rape, humiliation or other inappropriate behaviour.
-Hand to hand combat (at least mostly). The fight is fatal, fierce, a little bloody but not guro.
-Diverse types of zako girls. As many as we can image in the relatively-realistic world, mainly the professional and trained ones, like thug girls (student, stripper, motorbike), security girls (night club, paramilitary, bodyguard), martial artist girls(kungfu, kickboxer, karate), sport girls(wrestler, yoga, rollerblade), military girls (camouflage, armored, marine), assassin girls(leather, stealth, kunoichi), warrior girls(samurai, knight, amazon), supportive girls(nurse, driver, coordinator).
-Sexy as well as practical costumes for zako girls. Their culture, training background, battlefield and, protection movements are considered. Fancy wear like high-heels are for the bosses. Costumes can be slightly damaged and dirted, still, stripping is not the key of the game.
-Bosses are unique. They will not appear in later stages as zakos. Considering game-making costs, they could appear in the boss-rush stage before the final boss, in a different name and skin.
-Diverse battlefields. Slam, street, skyscraper, jungle, beach, dessert, lab, gym, relic, factory, base, mansion, dojo, castle... Environment and terrain can influence the fight, for example, kunoichi can climb on walls and trees, beating a girl to a wire-netting can rebound her back, walking in deep water makes characters slow. Deadly traps are just minor.
-Seductive sounds, a key ryona element. Girls have sexy voices during the fight, whether attack or being attacked, some words like "come on.""Not enough!""I failed..." are also attractive.
-Player's characters are the types the players intend to choose, like the ones discussed in other threads. Details will be stated when discussing characters. They have their own plots, own stages, own dialogues, later they may fight each other or the same final boss but they all fight for their own reasons. Maybe not all zakos and bosses serve the final boss, this makes plots easier.
Do you have any need or idea about these, like characters and plots?