I was thinking of simple ways of slowing it down for single player... Have you ever been in a fight and everything seems to happen so slowly around you... Matrix style? I have, 3 times... You can get away with slowing down the world once battle commences and the player is then on their own to attack as quickly as possible. They can become more attune with their senses which allows even slower attack and defence.

For multiplayer it is reasonably easy - there are no NPC battles so there is no problem of the computer attacking too fast, and each player v player attack will be fast and furious leaving the BETTER OPPONENT standing... It doesn''t matter if you have the bulkiest armour and the other guy isn''t wearing any, if he is faster at attacking and defending, he will be able to slowly bleed you dry

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers'' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

I read a lot of posts but never post myself. This subject interested me a lot. I have been learning Japanese sword fighting(Iaido) for quiet some time now (obviously as a hobby.) While I can understand the fact that a game might need you to go through the opponents body slicing him or her in half, the philosophy of Iaido is to do the maximum damage with exertion. It would be pretty intersting to see that being implemented. I mean, let the player have something like:
float fRateOfExertionPerMove;
float fMaxExertionCapacity;
float fCurrentExertionCapacity;
and the more moves the player does, the more tired the player and less accurate the player''s controls become. Also, you could use the the mouse to pivot the upper-body left, right, front(lunge) and back. And use keys to make the player jump, kneel, etc. These are just suggestions, and you may ignore them. I really hope you guys make a game of good sword fighting. ;-)

If Iaido doesn''t interest you, then how about fencing which wold require the player to have quick reflex and hand-eye coordination?!?
-AnkurX

I have done fencing, interesting sport. Not really attuned much to broadswords though... More of a rapier sport .

Anyway... I don''t know about making it realistic (and especially about using floats . longs are just as good and faster) but I certainly would like to see players battling it out by using EXERTION instead of just quick clicking speed. It would be mentally exerting to use such a system, which is why I think it involves the player more.

As for moving the upper body... I just had an idea MKV; *shock*
Using the block method, you could just chose to do a single block (whichever click it was) by selecting either which direction the attack was coming from, or by just allowing a generic block to attempt to block everything. Additionally, you could click and drag (using the block button) which would allow you to dodge (by ducking and rolling etc) which would eliminate the use of the modifier key (a little)

The modifier key can then be used simply to allow dirty tricks (such as kicking and headbutting etc).

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers'' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

Sorry i only got through half of this thread and had a thought i''d like to share. The idea is using quick clicks.

Basically using 2 button you get 4 different combo''s from quick clicking the mouse buttons. 4 different combo''s equals 4 different moves. What moves you do could be pre-set somehow in the gui or what not. If you include the middle mouse button then you get 8 combo''s which really should be that hard to pick up yes?

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

I think i spoke too soon.

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

Okay, two things to reply to:
1. Exertion.
2. Dragging the mouse.



1. Exertion is a nice idea. Perhaps just slowing the player''s action down as he performs more than his threshold of action in some unit of game time. This would make combat very interesting indeed, because you need to make the tradeoff between the kinds of attacks available:
Fast, moderate damage, tiring.
moderate speed, moderate damage, exertion stays same.
moderate speed, low damage, exertion goes down.
etc...
This way of designing attacks would, I think, lead to a good game.


2. Dragging the mouse is one interaction we''d skipped so far! Good thinking on that, dwarfie.
How many interactions does that give us?
2 mousebuttons, single and double click, single position and dragging. That''s eight, not bad. For instance:

1. left button, single click, no drag: fast stab on body part
   
2. left button, single click, drag: fast slash across body parts
   
3. left button, double click, no drag: powerful stab on body part
   
4. left button, double click, drag: powerful slash across body parts
   
5. right button, single click, no drag: block against body part
   
6. right button, single click, drag: dodge in drag direction ( combat moving )
   
7. right button, double click, no drag: generic block
   
8. right button, double click, drag: roll in drag direction
   

In case anyone''s wondering: double click and drag is click, click-hold and drag, release...


How would that be?


People might not remember what you said, or what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
~ (V)^|) |<é!t|-| ~

Damn paul! Using both buttons at the same time is something I hadn''t thought of yet

That adds three more we could assign:
left click then right click ( pin weapon? )
right click then left click ( disarm? )
right and left at the same time ( possibly for general block, with a reassignment of double-right to something else, like shield punch or something... )

People might not remember what you said, or what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
~ (V)^|) |<é!t|-| ~

Consecutive post #3:
I just realised that for the most part I''ve assigned the left button to the "main" arm ( attacking arm ), and the right to the "secondary" arm ( shield arm ), except for the dodging moves...
perhaps this is something to work with.


People might not remember what you said, or what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
~ (V)^|) |<é!t|-| ~

Expanding on your previous revelation MadKeithV, how about the left-mouse button for the left hand, the right-mouse for the right hand, andboth buttons together for dodging. This probable wouldn''t work too well, but I''m just brainstorming. For instance, if you have a sheild in the right hand and a sword in the left, then maybe a single right click would put the sheild out whilea double right click would make the player try to advance (pushing the opponent back with the sheild) and left clicks for the sword. For dodging then, both buttons pressed together and then dragging. Different speeds of drags can dodge with more force. Then again, if the player carries two weapons, for instance two lightweight swords, then trying to use the left and right at the same time would result in a dodge. Maybe we''d have to bring in ctrl or something.
Alright, so we have our basic swordfighting laid out, and its awesome. I''m just going to throw this out there, would there be a way to bring in shoves, kicks leaps or other miscelaneous fight maneuvers that could be used in combination with the basic sparring controls, and how would the player use these?

Great ideas guys. I like all the combos... And think about if you include the 3rd mouse button for those with that advantage

Anyway... About kicks and shoves etc, maybe you could hold down both buttons in a lclick-rclick on your body part.. That selects the body part to do the dirty trick...

Either that, or you can just have the ctrl, shift, or alt key to give the modifier

NO! I have it! Single click on your body part dragging it at the proposed area of attack and release on that area. ie... Kick in the groin (which is as dirty a trick as I can think of) would be a lclick on your right leg, drag to groin, release on groin.

Thoughts?

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers'' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche