How to Carry Over Depleted Health to the next Loop? - c++

Question

I have this program where instantiate player character, enemy characters, and their weapoons. The player characters choose who to attack, and the enemies attack the players at random. They have have their own health, positions, and weapon damage set at random. I also have a Weapon function dodamage(), which decreases the player's healthpoints by weapon damage. In main(), I set a while(true) loop where each character attacks and depletes health. The problem is each loop after the first, the health, and damage are the same as the beginning. They never change after the first loop. I was wondering how I could carry resulting damage over to the next loop until health reaches <=0.
Main.cpp
void playerAttack(Character c1, Character c2, Weapon w, string target)
{
if (target == "1")
{
w.DoDamage(c1.healthPoints, w.Damage);
if (c1.healthPoints <= 0)
c1.die();
}
else if (target == "2")
{
w.DoDamage(c2.healthPoints, w.Damage);
if (c2.healthPoints <= 0)
c2.die();
}
}
void enemyAttack(Character c1, Character c2, Weapon w)
{
srand(time(NULL));
int randTarget = rand() % 2 + 1;
if (randTarget = 1)
{
w.DoDamage(c1.healthPoints, w.Damage);
if (c1.healthPoints <= 0)
c1.die();
}
else if (randTarget = 2)
{
w.DoDamage(c1.healthPoints, w.Damage);
if (c2.healthPoints <= 0)
c2.die();
}
}
int main()
{
PlayerCharacter p1, p2;
EnemyCharacter e1, e2;
Weapon p1W = p1.currentWeapon;
Weapon p2W = p2.currentWeapon;
Weapon e1W = e1.currentWeapon;
Weapon e2W = e2.currentWeapon;
string enemyTarget, playerTarget;
p1.printCharacter();
p2.printCharacter();
e1.printCharacter();
e2.printCharacter();
while (true)
{
cout << "Player One. Choose your Target (1 or 2)" << endl;
cin >> playerTarget;
playerAttack(e1, e2, p1W, playerTarget);
cout << "Enemy One Attacks" << endl;
enemyAttack(p1, p2, e1W);
cout << "Player Two. Choose your Target (1 or 2)" << endl;
cin >> playerTarget;
playerAttack(e1, e2, p2W, playerTarget);
cout << "Enemy Two Attacks" << endl;
enemyAttack(p1, p2, e2W);
}
if (p1.isDead && p2.isDead)
cout << "Game Over!" << endl;
else if (e1.isDead && e2.isDead)
cout << "You Win!" << endl;
system("pause");
return 0;
}
Weapon.cpp
void Weapon::printWeapon()
{
srand(time(NULL));
cout << "Weapon: " << WeaponType[randomName] << endl;;
cout << "Type: " << object->WeaponName[randomType] << endl;
cout << "Damage: " << Damage << endl;;
}
int Weapon::DoDamage(int health, int damage)
{
int resultHealth = health - damage;
cout << "Damage - " << damage << endl;
cout << "Health: " << resultHealth << endl << endl;
health = resultHealth;
return health;
}
Character.cpp (Base class fro playercharacter and enemycharacter)
Character::Character()
{
srand(time(NULL));
populatePosition(3);
}
void Character::printCharacter()
{
srand(time(NULL));
healthPoints = rand() % 100;
cout << "Enter First Name" << endl;
cin >> firstName;
cout << "Enter Last Name" << endl;
cin >> lastName;
cout << endl;
cout << firstName << " " << lastName << ": " << endl;
cout << "Health: " << healthPoints << endl;
cout << "Position: "<<endl;
for (auto p:position)
{
cout << p << ", " << endl;
}
cout << endl;
}
void Character::populatePosition(int vectorSize)
{
for (int i = 0; i < vectorSize; i++)
{
f = rand() % 20;
position.push_back(f);
}
}
void Character::die()
{
cout << firstName << " " << lastName << " is dead " << endl << endl;
isDead = true;
}

Answer 1

The issue is that DoDamage never updates anything outside of it's scope.
You're passing health by value, so the results of DoDamage never get used. You're also not catching the results of the return value, which could also be used to update the value.
To fix it, either A, make the heath parameter of DoDamage be pass by reference
int Weapon::DoDamage(int & health, int damage)
{
int resultHealth = health - damage;
cout << "Damage - " << damage << endl;
cout << "Health: " << resultHealth << endl << endl;
health = resultHealth;
return health;
}
references are basically like pointers to data, but you don't have to remember to dereference them, the compiler will remember that for you. You just have to remember that the value coming in is at the same address as the value that you're working with.
Or B, use the value being returned to re-assign the healthpoints of the character in the attack functions.
e.g:
w.DoDamage(c1.healthPoints, w.Damage);
could look like:
c1.healthPoints = w.DoDamage(c1.healthPoints, w.Damage);