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Original post by Naxos if the player does nothing, then he will automatically block incoming attacks, and stamina will be taken away, right?

Thats right.

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But, on the flip side, if the player blocks it himself, none is taken away, right?

Right

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Or am I misinterpreting what you said?

Nope you've got it spot on.

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This sounds like a good idea. Though, I would prefer that the auto-blocking be somewhat costly as far as stamina goes, to encourage the player to block himself.

I see two forms of stamina. Attack stamina is expended during players attack, when it is depleted then their attack is over. Battle stamina is the players will to fight, without it they cannot continue (so it is like HP just a different focus). It may also be possible in extreme circumstance for the player AS (Attack Stamina) to be depleted quicker if their opponent block/evades very well.

A quick thought on footwork. It should be used to move the opponent into a disadvantaged position. For instance forcing them into a corner or upstairs. Maybe the player can position themselve close to an advantage. For example picking up a jug smashing it over their opponents head or throwing sand in their eyes. This is little outside of the basic fight system, but by making use of the enviroment the game will be more varied and therefore more fun.

Too much to implement for the first game, maybe leave it for the sequel...

I dunno if it's really what you are thinking of, but personally I find Soul Calibur 2 to have very fluid cinematic style moves. Depending on your character too (like Raphel for example) they actually do use real life techiniques.

Another example of epic style dueling is in Jedi-Knight when in multiplayer and two Jedis accept a duel... though of course not terribly realistic it is quite like the Star Wars duels.

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Original post by StaticVoid I see two forms of stamina. Attack stamina is expended during players attack, when it is depleted then their attack is over. Battle stamina is the players will to fight, without it they cannot continue (so it is like HP just a different focus). It may also be possible in extreme circumstance for the player AS (Attack Stamina) to be depleted quicker if their opponent block/evades very well.

Does the attack get the same amount of attack stamina each time his attack is initiated? And, other than blocking, what takes away from battle stamina? Being hit?

I agree with ArchangelMorph. Good defence is vital for a cinematic swordplay in games.

Take a look at Ninja Gaiden for the xbox. The enemies, not to mention the bosses, had great defence skills, so the player coulden't just mash the attack button. In order to beat the enemies, the player needed to use the complex comboes, and the fights were nothing less the what you can see in a good ninja movie.
Now look at Die by the Sword. Blocking the enemies attacks was almost impossible in this game, and the enemies had hard time to block your attacks. The best strategy was repeating the horizontal slash, and the great idea of free control of your weapon was wasted. Even mashing the attack button in platformers and hack&slash games produced better results then the simple swing.

After that was sayed, lets look at the chambara. It consists of two parts: movement and weapon. Lets assume the player wants his character to do a spining flip above an enemy's head while attacking it. Does the player realy need to guide the character while it is running to the ennemy, jupming, spin-flipping above the enemy and landing on the onther side? Do we realy need to force the player to run in strait line, and press the right key comination for this move? There is such a move in Jedi Academy, and I found it to clumsy to use. We must assume that the character can perfrom a spin-flip perfectly above a log or a training dummy. If he cann't do it in training, he shouldn't do it in a combat.
So, my idea is that once the player decides he wants to do the spinflip, he no longer have control over the characters movement. Then, he can focus all his attention to controlling the weapon. That way, better attack and defence controls can be implament.

So this is my battle system:
When the player meets an enemy, he enters ready mode. That mode can be turn based or real time, with movement or without it. It can be any rpg battle system. When the player decides what he want to do, or when the enemy attacks, the game enters contact mode. In that mode the player controls only on his weapon(lets say it is a sword). The controls his sword with the mouse. He can hold the left button and swing for slashing, or swing with the right mouse button holded for blocking. Another possibility is that if the player is the one initiating the attack, then the player always attacks and the enemy always defends, and visa versa. This is just one idea of sword controling, and other weapons can have other controls. All the actobatics and footwork are decided when the player, or the enemy, chose thier moves, and it can be changed according to the course of the attack(if the enemy hits the player during the spinflip, the player bails). After a certain amount of attacks, or a certain amount of time, the player and the enemy depart, and the game returns to ready mode.

This is basically an improvement of the mini-games battle system in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (I didn't player the second one, since I don't own a GameCube, but I watched the review on X-Play). The difference is that my battle system has fewer mini-games, since many attacks can share the same controls. My mini-games, however, are more complex. They are more then mini-games, somthing worth their own arcade game (or at least some levels in an acrcade game).

I want my next game, while it won't be a chambara game, to have a battle system like that. It will take a long time to make it, since I am a lazy person, but when the battle system will be ready, I will upload a demo so you can all try it out.

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Original post by Naxos Does the attack get the same amount of attack stamina each time his attack is initiated?

I believe it should keep the same inital value for AS for every attack, otherwise you will not have enough AS to put together long (and fun) combos by the end of the battle. Maybe temporary status changes can effect AS, like stunned or rage for one round.

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And, other than blocking, what takes away from battle stamina? Being hit?

You never take a mortal wound until you run out of BS (bad acronym), sword wounds tend to fatal. It is assumed that your character is a good enough swordsman to block an attack, but blocking/evading with style and purpose will not lose you BS. A good defensive combo could also give you back the advantage.