Daggerfall had quite good sword fights in it, but you didn''t really have the ''feel'' for the sword.

IMHO the mouse + right click idea was quite good, a bit like in Die by the Sword

Mustard

I know it''s not what you''re looking for... but a slightly more realistic option would be to just have the traditional single attack button, and have the computer work out how you attack based on your characters proficiency with the weapon. This could generate very cool *looking* sword fights. I admit it takes some of the fun out of it though...

There is a Dreamcast games call "Maken X" which I thought did sword fighting really well.

vfkidz

If you have Soul Calibur (at least I know the Japanese version does this) and you plug the Dreamcast fishing rod into the port where the controller should go, waving the fishing rod around corresponds to moving the sword on the screen, ie If you swing it upward the character swings their sword upwards. The only problem was that I kept on moving the fishing rod at the natural frequency of the connecting wire causing it to become unplugged from the Dreamcast. Ah well, back to the drawing board with that one.

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#pragma twice

sharewaregames.20m.com

There was a game called Die by the Sword which had "realistic" sword fighting. It was terrible!

So does anyone here think that my control style was feasable?

BTW, you would use the mouse to look around (in case you didn''t assume that).

I seem to remember a graduate student or something doing swordfighting using a plastic sword and a web-cam. It was really cool, you swing the plastic sword and the sword in the game moves. That''s just about as close as you can get to actual sword fighting . Can''t remember the link though...

PreManDrake

Personally, I loved the effort done by Die By the Sword. But there was just *too much* freedom of movement.
I prefered a system similar to Ultima underworld (then used in Daggerfall I believe), where you'd use a limited set of predefined attacks (slash, point, bash).

The idea I am working on is to use mouse gesture recognition. Simply draw with the mouse. You get the ease of the use of the mouse with the visual coolness of using predefined movement. The mouse would be used with the keyboard, to allow for more freedom. As for two swords fighting, or two handed weapons, if you really think about it, there are not many moves that you can do.
you would basically draw the movement you want with the mouse, pressing buttons for some special moves, and that's pretty much it.
The keyboard would be quake like (strafe left righ, forward backward) crouch and jump would either make you crouch/jump or high/low aiming(depending on the gesture you make). Left and right mouse button would be for attacking/parrying. Without button pressed, the mouse make the player turn around. The view would NOT be single player, but rather 3d person camera (a la Jedi Knight) ... because it looks better, and it would allow for some cool tricks (doing a full circle attack, or parrying front then attack in your back )

I am still working on the gesture recognition though :/ but I'd really like to see this go through.

If you don't think gesture recognition is fast enough/ intuitive enough ... I'd recommand you try the program Sensiva and think about it again

youpla :-P


Edited by - ahw on October 12, 2000 4:01:54 PM

I think I like the idea where you use the..

Arrow Keys: Move character
Move Mouse: Move sword (when in battle mode)
Mousekey1: Swing sword
Mousekey2: Thrust sword, or perhaps a special technique..
If you were a theif, and you thrusted from behind,
Your backstab skill would go off and do more damage..

How does it sound?

Also, to the person who had the "In the end it depends on who can get behind who's back first" theory, isn't it that way in real life?

Also, what do you think of my formulas:
(the max AC is 500, and your a god when you have that much, you arent suppose to do much damage, if you hit for 250 you are a god also)

Damage Formula:
Step1 = (pTarget.AC * .1) / 100; // calc AC protection
Step2 = Me.Strength * (Me.WeapDamage * AtkBonus); // damage
Damage = Step2 - (Step2 * Step1); // AC protects you

AtkBonus is a random dice roll between 1 to 20, and adds damage by checking if you hit in a weak spot, and puts skill into play.
This has to be tweaked still.




Edited by - dark_stalker on October 12, 2000 7:22:14 PM

dark_stalker, you forgot a step: looking. W/A/S/D are great for moving a character forward, backward, and strafing, but what about turning or looking up and down? The mouse is almost always used for that in FPSs because it works so well.

One option is to enter a duel mode, in which your character always faces the person you''re fighting, like in fighting games (at least, I think that''s what fighting games do). Then WASD are enough for character movement, and the mouse would work for sword movement.

But I hate that sort of fighting. I like more involved fights, such as those in Jedi Knight. It left a lot to be desired, of course, because the only way to win was to hit someone from behind or to the side. The sequel (Dark Forces 3: Obi-Wan, I think it''s called) will I believe have a more developed sabre-fighting system, so it will be interesting to see how the designers do it.

~CGameProgrammer( );