I am creating a 3rd person game, and I am trying to figure out how to best handle combat. It will mostly be pirates (''Argh matey'' pirates, not ''i copied windows'' pirate!) that you are fighting in a horror setting, and although just having guns and a sword or two would seem the obvious answer, I dont want the game to deteriorate to a simple ''blam-blam'' game, as it tends to get to a point where players donr care what they are fighting, and are soon just running through the level blasting everything (which works for some game, eg. Max payne). I kinda wana slow the action down a bit, so the enemy is more in the players face, trying to make it so that the fights are something the players care about. I suppose the best way of saying it is that I want to make sure it does not turn into ''Arcade'' style fights. How could this be done? How would you do it? Do you know of some games that have done this really well? Any feedback on this would be much appreciated. Thanks everyone!

well the best way and most fun way is to make the environment as interactive as possible during fighting. i don't mean for puzzles.
for example, if you're on a pirate ship and there are enemies who have boarded your ship, what do you do? well fighting through a horde of enemies might be fun. but how about if we cut down the sail so it falls on top of your enemies? ahhh, new dynamic! now you can skewer your enemies and have your shipmates take over the enemy's ship and send them to the bottom of the sea.

with one-on-one battles maybe you can have the camera change angles, during the fight. making it look like something out of a movie. but not so much moving that you get seasick or get an epiletic episode.

hope that helps, more later

[edited by - Alpha_ProgDes on February 21, 2003 2:55:30 PM]

Also, don''t make the weapons too powerful. For example, the guns they used weren''t very accurate as far as I can remember, and the sword has an obvious range and takes time to swing. Like Alpha_ProgDes said, make the game far more interactive with a dynamic world where everything could be used as a weapon in the battle. For example, you cut loose the rope holding a cannon. As the ship rocks back, the cannon rolls backward (perhaps with a helpful shove) into the enemy. Etc.

a couple of questions:
are you the only one working on this game?
how good are your programming skills?
how/who is implementing the art (models, textures, lighting, animation)?

i ask these questions so that those of us who want to give you suggestion don''t start making outrageous ideas which you couldn''t or wouldn''t implement.

also are the pirates gonna be in a England-type area or will they going to Middle Eastern, Asian-type area also?

also on the subject of weapons. please don''t have the best weapons for ridiculous prices. have some of them obtainable through a high score/killing accuracy or special defeat of an enemy.

With regard to weapons, I''d avoid making different weapons do seriously different amounts of damage. If you can gain a serious combat advantage just by buying the PUSD, then combat is cheapened. Just having Blackbeard''s cutlass shouldn''t make you much more dangerous. Scarier, sure. Tougher, not really.

Just a pet peeve.

are you the only one working on this game?
Yes. I am using 3D Game studio to create it.

how good are your programming skills?
Not amazing wow increadible, but I am learning.

how/who is implementing the art (models, textures, lighting, animation)?

I will be doing that also. Im not going to go crazy with graphics, but I want the models to looks scary.

also are the pirates gonna be in a England-type area or will they going to Middle Eastern, Asian-type area also?

Its going to be a horrer game, so they are kinda ghost pirates...but not dead..although they will be out of proportion. In other words, they arnt based of real life ones. So black beard wont even exist (which is good news for Iron Cheif!)

Thanks for all the help.

hey i have a BIG favor to ask Boolean!
could you show me or point me in the right direction to how to make models using 3D GameStudio?

it seems so hard with the system i have now.
thanks and good luck with your game!

Character control is of critical importance. Even if you''re only going to go for a simple, one button to attack, one button to jump setup, consider all the variables that the player will have to deal with.

If you lay out combat so that the player will be dealing with many enemies at once, it''s important to be able to easily target an enemy and attack them. Thus, player direction should be oriented relative to the camera. If your player character will be more of a duelist, typically fighting one enemy, and sometimes fighting two, you may want to provide some array of moves with specific uses, and also you''ll want player movement to be relative to the opponent. So that the player doesn''t always have to orient to the target, but rather, be able to dodge left and right as needed.

Finally, remember that even if enemies do not vary much in the way they look, they must vary in the challenge they present and the way in which they fight. That way, when you mix them together, the player must assume a very dynamic style to defeat them, hence a challenge is made better.

George D. Filiotis

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watch shome oldschool pirate movies..
you''ll soon realize that there are not too many one-on-one battles
something like the LOTR EA game, but on a boat and interactive environment would be cool.

I dont know if you ever played the beat-em-ups Soul Blade or Soul Caliber (pirate themed co-incidentally) but they had a nice feature that I always weanted to see developed. If you pressed block at just the moment the oponent attacked it would parry the attack and leave them vulnerable for half a second (Also used in a similar way Dead or Alive I think). When this worked it always felt great as you timed the parry and then countered rather than just holding block for ages.

It would be nice to see this worked into a thrid-person action game especially if there are lots of people all around. Being able to parry and counter always makes for more tactical combat.

Also, Alpha_ProgDes is right about interactive environment. If you can manage that it would be nice.