Ever played or considered a mouse interface for a RPG such as the following: Left Button to left arm action, Right button to right arm action, wheel rotates primary arm’s primary action. So for a sword and shield, you could work the arms independently, while using the wheel would rotate through your primary sword movements and activate which one: Overhead, slash, stab, block, etc. For a mage, your right hand may hold a wand, while your left hand may control your spell casting. So the right button fires the wand, while the mouse scrolls through your active spell list, activating which spell the left button fires. Keep in mind that this would all be default settings, but allowing the players to bind any allowable actions to any allowable keys would still be implemented. The Tyr project is here.

Hey,

I dont like the whole mouse wheel thing. From a user interface design standpoint (did you ever take Goguen''s class? what a joke), you are greatly limiting those who don''t have a wheel on their mouse. Secondly, during hand-to-hand combat, assuming this game has a realtime battle interface, it would cost crucial amounts of time to have to scroll to the action you want to perform, resulting in player frustration, which is BAAAAD.

I am frustrated with some RPG''s in which when you are a melee character, all you do is to click on the enemy and let your character finish the slash and hack, with ocassion pressing the "heal" button. I think that kind of gameplay is very boring and I think you are trying to make the player more intellectually engaged in the battle.

For that, I think your idea is pretty cool in terms of magics, but I agree with Sonicmage that you can''t really scroll during melee. Maybe you can make the different actions clickable icons. I like the way that Black and White casts magic, by drawing figures on the screen with the mouse, but it might get really intense.

Estok

I think I was a bit too quick to post, as I didn''t really put all the info in my head down.

I agree that you can be limiting non-wheel players, as well as that scrolling during melee could become troublesome. I also agree that the Diablo hack and slash CLICK CLICK CLICKETY CLICK CLICK gets freaking boring fast.

The ultimate underlying idea is to add variety and options to battles while still keeping the CLICK system for a.)newbies to the game, b.) people without mouse functionality, and c.) those who just get tired and don''t care to be strategic. The whole point is to allow the strategic element to enter into combat.

By choosing an overhead chop when your opponent is slashing your shield, they may be defensively more vulnerable and hence you get a +2 to your attack. Max penalty for choosing wrong would be -1, simply because it can get difficult to control.

All valid keys are bindable, so wheel functionality could easily be put somewhere else. The fact remains that people playing action games without a mouse wheel are limited. Ever played quake? No matter what you use your mouse wheel for (weapons changing, zooming, or some other script) it is HUGELY beneficial and with a little bit of practice very fluid in a fast pased game. Some small amount of dexterity required for the gamer should not keep you from implementing a cool feature; if it requires them to play on their head you have gone too far. A mouse wheel should be trivial to 90% of PC gamers. If you don''t have one, then you are at a disadvantage in any game that allows one, and at some point should upgrad to what has become basic hardware.

Valid?

Haha Oct dev werent you the one who had the rocket company?

Blade of Darkness. ''Nuff said.

If you took that game and added more RPG stats (IE, make your character''s dodge stat to affect their dodge, added in stronger focus on stats, make blocks dependent on skill, etc) you''d have a brilliant action RPG.

That''s where I''m aiming anyway...somewhere between Morrowind and Blade of Darkness.

Moo.

I always liked having the type of attack bound to the movement keys, like in Zelda 64. It feels natural to step left and swing left, and it makes the controls very intuitive. In that game, the different attacks were mostly cosmetic, but if you could work that into a real, practical battle system, it would be fun, easy, and still get the old noodle into the fight.

From the looks of things, this Tyr project is really cool. Just make sure the class system isn''t too restrictive (see the related thread for my thoughts on that).

quote: Original post by zerzic
Haha Oct dev werent you the one who had the rocket company?

Teh Roxor Rockets!!!

I will definitely check out Blade of Darkeness and see if I can get a demo to try out the UI; thx for the headsup!

quote: ...somewhere between Morrowind and Blade of Darkness.

Well, from your description that seems to be the direction I am working towards as well with the Tyr project, at least from a design perspective.

quote: I always liked having the type of attack bound to the movement keys, like in Zelda 64. It feels natural to step left and swing left, and it makes the controls very intuitive.

Aesthetically, these were cool. But like you said most were little more than Aesthetic attacks, with the exception being a move or two that were combination moves, and lent you more power. Incorporating a system with combination moves like this would be cool to add even more flexibility and strategy in melee, while still allowing the novice to play easily. It would also make things look cooler . I hadn''t really thought about coupling attack routines beyond a more advanced mouse setup; this could develop into something interesting. The trick is to find that balance of available power with generic and novce usability...

quote: From the looks of things, this Tyr project is really cool.

Sidenote...Yeah, Tyr feedback is good. I just read your post and have some comments; off to the other thread!

The Tyr project is here.

Well, BoD featured a move to hit system like Zelda''s, with the exception that it featured locational hit systems and combos.

Also, different types of hits did different damage and came out faster/slower.

Tyr does look great.

Moo.