Game Development: Combat System

[sabinati]

well i must admit i'm also not a huge fan of the new combat moves, jump, charge, etc. perhaps a system that had stances or moves like feint, parry, as well as actual attacks and perhaps slight, medium, and heavy modes for them would be more interesting, so one might still have a lot of moves but the attacks would be more frequent but maybe do less damage each time.

[Haba]

I hope you won't be offended if I am a bit blunt here. The reason I didn't use the combat test server that much in the first place was that the combat seemed utterly incomplete and broken. I was waiting for more updates to actually flesh out the system before spending more time with it.

The only positive I see in this update is that it will probably reduce PVP - combat is such utter tripe at the moment that I doubt many people will find a lot of enjoyment in it.

[Jackard]

well i must admit i'm also not a huge fan of the new combat moves, jump, charge, etc. perhaps a system that had stances or moves like feint, parry, as well as actual attacks and perhaps slight, medium, and heavy modes for them would be more interesting, so one might still have a lot of moves but the attacks would be more frequent but maybe do less damage each time.

sounds good, i cant comment much as I was doing something similar to haba - waiting for the new combat to become more fleshed out before actually playing with it. back then it didnt even have melee attacks and my unarmed is still at one

[warrri]

This last update seems to have made the client more resource hungry.

i already wrote that on page 3 or 4 or so and loftar said he doesnt think it did, or at least he cant imagine how and why.

Relating the combat system i have to agree with sabinati here. The combat right now is pretty ok gameplay wise, though it may be imbalanced stats wise. But instead of balancing it(no i dont know how to do it myself) you change it gameplay wise to a ridiculous thing.
What exactly are the people doing when they charge, jump and flex for 3 miuntes, before they do a single punch or sting?
Pulling the realism argument here, you dont stand next to your enemy for minutes jumping around or whatever, you cross your swords and the weaker or slower one just get stabbed in his chest. You can miss, he can parry, he can block, he can just absorb it because a rusty sword does no damage through a plate, if you hit the plate and not the neck or arms, or whatever, but right now, i cant imagine what exactly they are doing when they stand next to each other doing nothing until one finally makes one sting every several minutes.

What i like though is, that stats still matter very much, as long as its 1on1. But a party of 2 or more can beat your ass if they use it wisely, and their leader has some charisma.

[Pacho]

Well, the only major change I've seen on the client code is how text is handled, so that's what I would suspect is eating up more resources.

I haven't looked at it all too closely though.

[Jackard]

shield blocks, feints, lunges, parries, kicks, warcries, counters could all be some neat moves. some of this stuff should reposition your character

id imagine youd want less passive elements in this sort of combat

[sabinati]

What i like though is, that stats still matter very much, as long as its 1on1. But a party of 2 or more can beat your ass if they use it wisely, and their leader has some charisma.

did they make charisma matter?

[Lothaudus]

If possible, I would also like to do something about the hearthfire situation, because indestructible, carryable hearthfires are ugly as fuck.

Have you considered getting rid of heathfires altogether? Logging in at village or where you last logged out are really all that's needed. Actually "where you last logged out" as the only option would stop magic insta-transporting (you can decide whether that's good or bad). Pros and cons of that but they can be easily overcome. I'm not certain what a hearthfire is really meant to do anyway.

Also, have you considered setting up some kind of combat arena? I'm thinking an option you choose when logging in that takes you to a small map where people just fight to the death. You're given random stats on entry and access to weapons.

You could setup a system similar to hearth secrets. You can create a new character and get the starting area much like you do now but there's another person (a boxer?) you can speak to. Entering a password with them takes you to a unique combat arena which has chests of weapon and armour. Another player can enter the same password and be taken to the same arena where you then get to duel. Alternatively, selecting a "public arena" option takes you to the public arena where you can fight whomever may be there. Entering the arena the first time with a character gives you randomly generated stats which last until your character dies.

I've not done anything with the combat system at all myself. All I can say is it "seemed" broken, having heard of other's experiences and I didn't really want to risk my character or bother grinding up an alt properly to try it out. But an option like a combat arena that anyone can join and instantly get some stats and weapons might be worth-while and give you the data you desperately need.

[warrri]

If possible, I would also like to do something about the hearthfire situation, because indestructible, carryable hearthfires are ugly as fuck.

Have you considered getting rid of heathfires altogether? Logging in at village or where you last logged out are really all that's needed. Actually "where you last logged out" as the only option would stop magic insta-transporting (you can decide whether that's good or bad). Pros and cons of that but they can be easily overcome. I'm not certain what a hearthfire is really meant to do anyway.

Have you actually thought that through or did it just strike your mind for a second? The hearth fire allows you to play with other friends if you dont have a village yet, because they can start at your place. Having a hearthfire allows you to return to your claim when youve lost the direction. Having a hearthfire allows you to login when you got disced and dropped something on the place you stood. Having a hearthfire allows you to escape a trap that people built around you because you were afk for 2 minutes, or they seen where you logged out. Having a hearthfire ...
you see where this is going. All this situations would need workaround and to be even more honest we dont want teleporting to be gone in this huge world without any fucking mean of transporting mass resources and trading.

[Onionfighter]

I welcome the new map and char reset.

About combat, my initial impression is that it is super complicated, and I probably won't use the majority of moves once the "best" move is found. For me that is charge right now. I do like the idea of a leader being able to provide bonuses to other people in the group. When I was starting the game, the old combat system took a while to learn because that was rather complicated. The tooltips help, but I would like an explanation of all the symbols.

For forests, I think different lighting would help: darker. Also, I think it would be great if the world was constantly changing. Different stages of tree growth, competing landscapes, moving animal populations. Having different tiles to represent forest ground would also be nice (and different tiles for different types of forest?). That said, the current forests are an improvement over the last map, so I am optimistic.

One aspect that will help all places on the map would be ambient sounds.
Sound is something in H&H that could really be upgraded. Being able to control the game volume, and having the volume of sound effects change with distance would really improve gameplay (being able to turn off the music is one of the reasons I use a client. I'm not knocking Kaka's work, but it is annoying to have the same tune blast through my speakers whenever I enter a cabin.)

Additional thing: a great artist of forest environments: http://yonaz.deviantart.com/ (He's also Swedish.)