Game Development: Combat System

[KJGJ]

I don't know if this is covered anywhere else or not, but is it the case, or will it be the case, that wearing a bunch of armor makes you run slower, or disables the fastest speed option? I was just thinking that if there's some massive juggernaut of a basterd gooning around with great armor and weapons, they shouldn't be allowed to outrun a poor nooblet who is fleeing for their life with nothing on but their original linens. Especially given the perma-death nature of the game, fleeing combat (especially when you didn't initiate it) is an important game mechanic.

(if you can't tell, i don't have much experience with combat per se, but i'm quite familiar with spastically scampering away from that boar I accidentally right-clicked on...)

so if a person has armour on, they will never be able to kill anyone? is that the point of your suggestion? how is someone suppose to kill someone if there opponent can just walk away from them and the other guy cant catch them. you do realize that a person weilding an axe or a sword cannot even hit someone right away. they have to walk up and dash infront of someone twice before they can even hit you. If they aren't wearing a sword, then you wouldn't have to worry anyways because unarmed damage is even less than it was before the update, so you again, could just walk away. your suggestion would make the combat even worse. runescape has stuff with overloading armour onto someone, but again it doesn't slow them, it makes them tire faster.

No, he's saying that it should be easier for someone in linen clothes to outrun somebody wearing bulky and encumbering 30kg armor as well as lugging around a massive battleaxe.

[JustasJ]

If I were to make a game that has fighting involved(which I hope I will since I am a quite likely to study Software Development) I would be doing it far more simple. While keeping offensive and defensive bars, I would do it like this: Both bars charge slowly themselves, the greater your battle-related skills, amount of stamina, fighting skills and weapon quality, the faster they recharge. At pretty much ANY TIME you could press a button to land a blow on an opponent, but that would drain your offensive bar and more offensive you collect, the greater the chance of hitting opponent smoothly is. A blow would always drive opponents defensive bar to zero, but a successful one would stop it from refilling for 10-20 seconds or so. If a successful blow is landed during that time, damage is taken by the opponent and he is injured, or, in a case of PvP, fainted too. Fainting would be easier than just dying in a way that you can kill someone who hasn't fainted yet, so duels without deaths could be possible. "Simple to learn but difficult to master" - here you go.

[Zirikana]

... so if a person has armour on, they will never be able to kill anyone?

It's a good point. I don't think it should be that cloth-wearing people can zip around with impunity and armor wearers are immobile lumps. I just mean a slight speed advantage. If you don't react quick enough or if you try and stand your ground, yeah, you will get hacked up by the battleaxe wielding monster. It's just my gut feeling that there should be SOME slight advantage to someone fleeing combat, especially if they didn't initiate the combat. Maybe they could have it so that you lose whatever speed advantage you might have had if you don't disengage from combat within a second or two, so that you couldn't just punk out on a battle that's gone south on you. In which case it's no longer a question of skill or armor weight like i suggested, but simply of aggression. Combat would be slightly more of a voluntary thing, and you could still take over a village or destroy someone's property and grief them up good just by scaring them off, but the victim gets at least a slightly improved chance at fleeing and rebuilding. But yeah, just having speed be based on armor weight is a crummy idea, since you'd just have griefers running around naked and punching people

"Simple to learn but difficult to master" - here you go.

Sounds good to me.

[Potjeh]

I don't see anything difficult in master in that system, all I see is that it involves a lot of luck (which means I'd lose every single fight).

[Zirikana]

maybe i'm missing the point, but it seems like the "mastery" aspect comes in when timing your attacks. If you just click away like a cocaine-study lab monkey, you won't do any damage. If you wait too long for your attack bar to rise up, you'll get beaten first. Finding the optimum pattern for attacking wouldn't neccessarily be obvious, and you've also got the luck factor thrown in. But again, if you're outmanned and outgunned, you don't stand much of a chance unless the "luck" factor really goes in your favor.

But i get what you mean Potjeh, too much emphasis given to "luck" would make pretty much any combat system you could come up with almost entirely pointless. The best game combat systems are the ones that allow you to control your odds of victory by a combination of gear quality and attack strategy/style.

(goofy side thought: what if one of your attributes, like charisma or something, functioned as a "luck" variable in combat? and you could boost it slightly by crafting a rabbits foot or something? seems like a lot of games use that kind of model, and it probably wouldn't be super hard to implement...)

[Dakam]

I'd be a huge liar if I said I liked this new combat system.

But what I do like about it is that there's less clutter with skills.

[Jackard]

i cant tell if hes joking or not

[Morgant]

After messing with it for a while, I'm going to have to agree with the people here, I want the old combat system back. It's just terribly unrealistic to spend 10 minutes jumping around your opponent and charging before you actually attack them. Punch attacks having pierce damage is just... Not good at all. If you wanted a pierce attack, make Valor Strike be some sort of stabbing technique that deals pierce damage, for armor penetration. Why not toss in a Stone spear? Pierce damage, Made with stone, wood, and string, and it's a weapon available to people without an Iron mine, or who don't feel like begging for metal from those with a mine. Plus it fits the setting, I'd think.
Wailing on a heavily armored foe with your bare hands would get you killed in real life. Unarmed could be changed up somewhat to make it more useful PVP-wise to add some kind of move that maybe, prevents an opponent from moving for a time, being something reminiscent of wrestling.
All in all, I like the tooltips, and I like that the system has been worked on, but the new combat system really makes me not want to fight anymore. I used to look forward to getting strong enough to attack bears with my trusty sword, or to Falconpunch them into submission, but with the combat system how it is, I'll stick to archery. It's a lot less of a pain in the neck.
Oh, and I really, really hate that you have to charge up initiative points to be able to hit with a sword or an axe. Considering that you're doing away with the Wind swords (The non-metal alternative weapon) And axes take a whopping 4 points to use (Stone axe), Weapons seem really gimped or useless now when I fight.

tl;dr Baww new combat system.

[calodine]

Uh, unarmed vs armoured people would be brilliant, actually. Not punching, but if unarmed was adapted to a form of wrestling, it would make sense. Swords were damn near useless against plate. Most of the time it came down to them getting knackered and wrestling/knife fighting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr6VrmOQY1M

Thats actually fairly realistic.

[flaw]

Uh, unarmed vs armoured people would be brilliant, actually. Not punching, but if unarmed was adapted to a form of wrestling, it would make sense. Swords were damn near useless against plate. Most of the time it came down to them getting knackered and wrestling/knife fighting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr6VrmOQY1M

Thats actually fairly realistic.

Which is why no one went into battle in plate, cause unarmed people constantly kicked their butts.

I see your point, but let's not take things too far.