I know this isn't the most creative idea, but I was curious what you all thought. Instead of a click-and-kill type of combat in a 2-D game, I was thinking of something a little different. Depending on the player's skill in the weapon the player is using, it would take a certain amount of time to complete a swing. The better the player is w/ a weapon, the faster he/she can swing, and hence, can swing more times in a time frame. Also, if the player and the enemy both reach the end of their swing at the same time then the will collide and no damage will be delt. So, the player would have to time their swing. Plus, there would be a command for parrying or using a shield to block. This way, there would be some strategy when fighting plus, there would be the skill attributes that factor in. I think it's better than whether the player gets a hit/miss being completely based on the skill level. "'Nazrix is cool' -- Nazrix" --Darkmage --Godfree Edited by - Nazrix on 10/1/00 9:17:58 PM

The only problem I could see with that is people getting frustrated when the controls don''t respond as quickly as they''d like. So if you do implement that, I think it might be best if you used it in combination with a couple of other things, so that no one of them is blatantly obvious, but the combination of the different techniques makes for an effective skill advancement scheme. Among other things, you could also use power and accuracy as things that improve with familiarity with a weapon, although I know those aren''t the most original ideas either.

-Ironblayde
Aeon Software

Yeah, I think even at the player''s worst the speed of the swing wouldn''t be unrealistically slow. I agree that there should be a few more attributes to affect it. Also, this would all apply to the enemies as well.

"'Nazrix is cool' -- Nazrix" --Darkmage --Godfree

I''m a little lost sorry. In such a setup as the one proposed, how is combat initiated? Are you still clicking on an enemy to choose or is it more arcadish controls like gauntlet?

"So your the one that designed that game are you?"
*Gulp* "Umm, yeah"

I'm not sure exacly how I want to handle the controls, but I was thinking something like clicking on the enemy you want to attack then hitting a key on the keyboard to swing. I was thinking of going a little further and having a different key for aiming for the differnt parts of the body (head, body, etc).

I guess my main objective is to have attributes affect the combat but not so much that they decide whether you hit or not. Instead of whether you hit something or not (and also whether you get hit by the enemy) depending on what your skills are or THAC0 or AC or whavever, you'd actually have to time your swings and block hits, but your skills would determine how quickly you could do these things.

So, if the player's skill is higher than the enemy's he'll be able to get tons of hits in before the enemy can finish a swing. Or, a player could block the enemy's swing and then swing at the enemy afterwards, but only if the player's blocking is high enough so that he has time to intercept the enemy's swing.

I know I'm not explaining this too well, but I'm still thinking it through myself



"'Nazrix is cool' -- Nazrix" --Darkmage --Godfree



Edited by - Nazrix on October 1, 2000 12:08:45 AM

Edited by - Nazrix on October 1, 2000 12:12:15 AM

Yeah, i was thinking about this just the other day actually. I realised one problem. But first i should state that i was thinking about a realtime combat system. The problem was; in a realtime rpg combat system, if you make it to complex it becomes very easy to overwhelm the player with to many options and controls to master. This is where the other thread i started called "altering game speed manually" was going. The slower you make it (in combat only) the more the player can do.

I personally was thinking of making it so the player can exchange time for accuracy or damage (both in most cases). But i was also going to have it so that if you''re hit then you lose any time you''ve invested in accuracy so far. Although i was thinking of projectiles at the time.

"So your the one that designed that game are you?"
*Gulp* "Umm, yeah"

Yeah, I realized that it seems to have some similarity to your controlling speed of the game. As long as the controls are throughly thoughtful interface, I think it can be complex. Theif's controls were pretty overwhelming at first but they were very thoughtful,and once I got used to it, the controls were very useful.

I was thinking more of real-time melee atm.

"'Nazrix is cool' -- Nazrix" --Darkmage --Godfree

Edited by - Nazrix on October 1, 2000 12:49:13 AM

I knew not having played thief would come back to haunt me one day. Ok, so we''ve got rpg, real time and melee combat. How about showing the player the swing width by having a circle around them so they can work out how close to stand to an enemy or would you prefer this to be on of the things the player has to master? Another thing to think about is what does the player do when they are confronted with more than one enemy at a time.

"So your the one that designed that game are you?"
*Gulp* "Umm, yeah"

quote: Original post by Paul Cunningham

I knew not having played thief would come back to haunt me one day.

Yeah that game's just so well-done.

quote:
Ok, so we've got rpg, real time and melee combat. How about showing the player the swing width by having a circle around them so they can work out how close to stand to an enemy or would you prefer this to be on of the things the player has to master?

Interesting idea...I think I'd rather that the player has to master it. I don't want it to feel too arcade-like

quote:
Another thing to think about is what does the player do when they are confronted with more than one enemy at a time.

"So you're the one that designed that game are you?"
*Gulp* "Umm, yeah"

Yeah that is a problem. I don't plan on using this combined w/ a Diablo type game where enemies are coming from all sides, but there may be 2 or 3 enemies at one time. I'd probably make it so you click on the enemy you want to attack then just hit keys on the keyboard to swing or block or whatever and it could automatically make you face the enemy that you clicked on so you don't have to worry about that.

Also, I think it would be interesting if the player or the enemy could step back to dodge an attack...then as the other person finishes the swing they could attack them while they're vulerable and still swinging. Then, how good you are w/ the sword among other attributes would determine whether you'd have the time to execute such a stunt.


"'Nazrix is cool' -- Nazrix" --Darkmage --Godfree

Edited by - Nazrix on October 2, 2000 2:07:39 AM

Ok, the next issue is how are you going to pass this on to the player. These sorts of things work well in beat''em ups where the graphics of people are larger so you can see all the action. But we''re talking about little characters here. Is all this effort going to add that much to a game if the player can''t see the action? Yes i could but here''s the string. How much effort is the player putting in in exchange for what they get back? This is not a negative comment becasue i''m not saying you''re doing anything wrong. What i am doing is just giving some helpful pointers.

"So your the one that designed that game are you?"
*Gulp* "Umm, yeah"