I think I'm gonna go ahead and drop the hold-Ctrl idea completely. It doesn't matter whether I go with the WASD with tab-ctrl + 1-4 or FESD + buttons around it. As long as no complicated solutions are required, this would allow for them to choose their keys as they wish. But we could have two sets of default layouts of course, and WASD or FESD would be it.

New topic: Combat
Although I've more or less made up my mind regarding movement (thanks for your help so far guys) I will of course listen carefully to any opinions expressed about it now as well. But I've changed the title of the thread in order to slide the topic a bit over to combat instead. What I'm looking for now is opinions regarding the type of combat that I've illustrated here, taking in consideration that we'll be using the type of movement-system explained throughout this thread.

It's a good idea to let the user modify controls. One thing you have to decide; will you let the user select how the buttons are used (whether toggle or hold) or is the UI predefined?

Combat
The actions needed:
-Dodge, used against single or multiple enemies.(Failed dodge means more damage)
-Parry/Block, used against single enemy. (Failed block means normal damage)
-Defensive spells, short range spells, some might be passive(Diablo2), "low" rate of failure.
-Attack spells, short-to-long range, "high" rate of failure.
-Spells can have duration instant-to-permanent.(Permanent only in special cases)

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Original post by grusifix_ It's a good idea to let the user modify controls. One thing you have to decide; will you let the user select how the buttons are used (whether toggle or hold) or is the UI predefined?

- The easiest (and imo most user-friendly) way to do it would probably be to restrict it to only which buttons to use for what, and now how to use them.

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Combat The actions needed:

-Dodge, used against single or multiple enemies.(Failed dodge means more damage)
-> Dodge will depend on the items you wear (heavy armored items will reduce chance of evasion) and certain skills and stats as well.

-Parry/Block, used against single enemy. (Failed block means normal damage)
-> A parry will depend on your handheld items and maybe certain skills. A parry will not be just like an evasion. Mainly, a successful parry will affect two things: It will decrease the durability(-points) of the item that you parried with, and it will only absorb a percentage of the blow, not all of it. The percentage that you parry will affect your item, while the other percentage will affect your health (after substracting the armorreduce of course).

-Defensive spells, short range spells, some might be passive(Diablo2), "low" rate of failure.
-Attack spells, short-to-long range, "high" rate of failure.
-> I have a veeery wide range of different spells already planned, and I have a lot of experience in making special yet not too complicated spells. Regarding failure, I think that will happen to only very special spells. One example, is a spell that will always have one effect, with a chance of adding another.

-Spells can have duration instant-to-permanent.(Permanent only in special cases)
-> I plan on setting up a quite elaborate description for each spell (not all of it will be viewable by the player of course) because there will be quite a lot of different factors to consider.

If you are looking for a fast paced action/adventure game I would drop the "random to hit chance". This kind of system works ok in turn based games where you don't have fine control over the character, but in real time games where you do have fine control over the character it just eliminates the need for fine control of the character. However, you can still use random damage.

In an fast paced game you want the player's control to be "Immediate" and "Tactile". That is what they do occurs as they use the controls (immediate) and what occurs is a direct result of their use of the controls (tactile).

By using a "random to hit chance" this removes the immediacy of the player's action and also removes the tactile aspect too. By having a random chance to hit, it is not the player's direct actions that cause the hit, but it is through an abstract system with a random number generator.

The alternative is to just use the collision detection to determine the hits. If the weapon collides with an opponent, the opponent is hit. The amount of damage done can then be determined however you like. You have to detect this collision anyway, so this actually makes the game simpler to code as well as you can just leave out all the random to hit calculations.

A couple of questions:
1) How many players will be playing at the same time?

2) Will it be a free-for-all or team based gameplay style?

If the game is team based, then you will most likely want to have a combat system in place where players can get a synergy for being in a group (like pikemen in medieval warfare or the Greek phalanx).

Another thing in team games to avoid is the use of magic as "just another weapon". If archers can shoot arrows and mages can shoot magic arrows, what then separates them? If you can be more creative with magic than just using it as another weapon, then you can allow the player to work together in interesting ways with a great deal of strategy and tactics. If you focus the mage's abilities around the strategic style of play (with the fighters involved in the tactical play) then you can get a good synergy between the character archetypes and give a better separation between the "feel" of the gameplay for them.

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Original post by Edtharan If you are looking for a fast paced action/adventure game I would drop the "random to hit chance".(...)

- You see, evasion will be an important part of the feel of the combat-system. It wont happen often, but when you do get a successful evasion or parry (which is the following example), there will be a parry-sound (like a sword clashing with a shield) and maybe a small effect. This will add to the feeling of the combat, making it feel like you're not just hacking on eachother's bare flesh. Also, there will be various skills (physical) that reduces, or maybe even completely removes the chance of missing. Like a backstab. A backstab should pretty much have a 100% chance of hitting, and btw, parries only work in a certain degree in front of your character, not behind its back.

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The alternative is to just use the collision detection to determine the hits. If the weapon collides with an opponent, the opponent is hit. The amount of damage done can then be determined however you like. You have to detect this collision anyway, so this actually makes the game simpler to code as well as you can just leave out all the random to hit calculations.

- I've been thinking about whether or not to do this, but I think it would get a bit too advanced. Along with all the rest of the combat-features in this game, there just isn't any room for player-placed hits and whatnots. It will only depend on whether or not you are close enough. Many factors will change though, when you first engange in combat. Your movementspeed will be slowed down, so you can't just decide to jump right out again with ease. Also, running backwards isn't as fast as forwards of course, but if you're hit in the back you will take extra damage.

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A couple of questions: 1) How many players will be playing at the same time?

- Well, the main-goal is to make it playable for at least 12 players playing at the same time, but my main goal is just to get a playbable demo going, to see if the concept works well (which is what me and my programmer (co-developer) is working right now9.

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2) Will it be a free-for-all or team based gameplay style?

- The idea is to make it quite team based. You should pick the right combinations of different characters and they again should choose the appropriate skills and equipment for the best synergy possible. And yes, there will be a whole lot of synergy going on between the different abilities granted to the players in this game. And magic will be a completely different thing. It will have its own formula of resistance, and maybe also its own manapool, seperating physical skills and magic spells. I won't go too much in-depht on the magic- nor skill-system right now, but rest assured, it will be highly customized for both speed, teamplay and balance.

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- You see, evasion will be an important part of the feel of the combat-system. It wont happen often, but when you do get a successful evasion or parry (which is the following example), there will be a parry-sound (like a sword clashing with a shield) and maybe a small effect. This will add to the feeling of the combat, making it feel like you're not just hacking on eachother's bare flesh. Also, there will be various skills (physical) that reduces, or maybe even completely removes the chance of missing. Like a backstab. A backstab should pretty much have a 100% chance of hitting, and btw, parries only work in a certain degree in front of your character, not behind its back.

However, if this dodge/evasion is randomly determined, then it isn't really up to the player, you would have taken this completely out of the player's hands and may just as well have the computer running the combat and the player can then go and make a cup of tea or something. If it is purely random and out of the player's control, the player can't feel anything.

If this evasion was instead put into the players hands and they had to activate it (eg: like in UT2004 they can double tap a direction to dodge in that direction) this would give the same features in the combat, but make them immediate and tactile.

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- I've been thinking about whether or not to do this, but I think it would get a bit too advanced. Along with all the rest of the combat-features in this game, there just isn't any room for player-placed hits and whatnots. It will only depend on whether or not you are close enough. Many factors will change though, when you first engange in combat. Your movementspeed will be slowed down, so you can't just decide to jump right out again with ease. Also, running backwards isn't as fast as forwards of course, but if you're hit in the back you will take extra damage.

Actually it is not as complex as you think. You already have some form of collision detection - just to detect if Player A is able to hit player B when the attack button is pressed. And that is all you need. If you put in a random to hit mechanic then you are just adding to this system already in place.

So, you have Player A press a button and you detect they they are within the weapon's reach from Player B.

You now know whether or not Player A has hit Player B. Instead of now doing a random "To Hit" and "Evasion" check, you just apply the damage to Payer B. It is actually less complex than constructing a "Random To Hit" mechanic.

If you are going to have a back stab mechanic in the game, they you already have to have the requirement of detecting whether or not Player A hit Player B in the back, so this also means no more work than you would have done.

You said that there is no room for player placed hits, but then you also said that being hit in the back while running away would deal more damage. Well, being hit in the back or front is really all you need for player placed hits and you seem to be wanting to include these anyway. So what is the problem?

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First off, I love using DASW for moving forward/backward and strafing. It makes dodging projectiles so much easier and more fun

You have already stated that you will not be using the random to hit for dodging projectiles, so why include a random to hit for dodging swords?

A sword can be seen as a short (very short ranged) projectile.

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- Well, the main-goal is to make it playable for at least 12 players playing at the same time, but my main goal is just to get a playbable demo going, to see if the concept works well (which is what me and my programmer (co-developer) is working right now9.

Ok 12 players, that means 6 a side. You should look to weapons and mechanics that are useful in small unit tactics.

The simplest is the Run and Gun where you fight running battles, using cover sniping (ranged attacks) and so forth. Shield walls and Pike hedges will not be as useful in this situations as they would be with hundreds of players.

Random to hit mechanics do not favour this type of skirmish tactics, they work better in massed formations as the numbers will even out over the mass of troops. In fact this kind of format will make even random damage less preferred.

With a Run and Gun game play style (which is more modern like than typical ancient armies), Lanchester's Square law tends to prevail as a single person is able to engage multiple people during the combat. This means that the loss of a single person is much greater than most people will think (as it is the square of the number of players on each side that determines the strength).

If this loss is just down to chance, then this will give the players even less feeling of control over the game and make the skills of the player even more irrelevant.

Action games imply the Twitch element. The Twitch element implies that it is the player's skill that is the most important aspect that determines the outcome of the combat.

By getting rid of the twitch element with a random "to hit" mechanic, you break the requirements of an action game.

I would do the random part before the action. You could randomly select the attack the character performs. Lets say that you have 3-8 different attack vectors (attack vector can be the path which the tip of the weapon follows or just group of vectors). You could randomly select one of the attacks and (you could also do some tiny random tweaks to the selected AV) do the collision detections to these vectors.

Sequence:
-Attack-action initiated
-Randomly select the attack vector (from available AVs)
(-tweak a bit)
-do collision test (this is done every frame until attack ends)

So what I'm saying is that you can combine the methods mentioned above.

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Original post by Edtharan However, if this dodge/evasion is randomly determined, then it isn't really up to the player, you would have taken this completely out of the player's hands and may just as well have the computer running the combat and the player can then go and make a cup of tea or something. If it is purely random and out of the player's control, the player can't feel anything. If this evasion was instead put into the players hands and they had to activate it (eg: like in UT2004 they can double tap a direction to dodge in that direction) this would give the same features in the combat, but make them immediate and tactile.

- Listen now. Of course the chance of evasion isn't beyong the players' control. If he's got a 15% chance of evasion, he will know that. If he wants more evasion, he will buy/craft/look for an item that will give him more evasion. If he thinks he's got enough evasion, he will strengthen his char in other ways. If you just think about it, this is not beyond the players' control at all. Ask any mathmatician. If you got a 15% chance for something to happen and you know about this value beforehand, then it is not by any means beyond your control.
And btw, something like in UT2004 could of course be easily done with a skill, but I don't want it to be a thing that everyone uses. I want people to be able to choose their own style of combat. Maybe you don't have good enough reaction to make such a skill useful? Well then you'll just go for static skills/stats like evasion, defense and hp.

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Original post by Edtharan Actually it is not as complex as you think. You already have some form of collision detection - just to detect if Player A is able to hit player B when the attack button is pressed. And that is all you need.

- And that is all I need? What I meant would be too complex is if the player was also supposed to decide in which direction and height he would thrust his blows. Because that would get too advanced.

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Original post by Edtharan If you put in a random to hit mechanic then you are just adding to this system already in place. So, you have Player A press a button and you detect they they are within the weapon's reach from Player B. You now know whether or not Player A has hit Player B. Instead of now doing a random "To Hit" and "Evasion" check, you just apply the damage to Payer B. It is actually less complex than constructing a "Random To Hit" mechanic.

No. Why can't the game support hitting a guy, whith a chance of evasion when that happens, huh? I don't care if it's less complex to just stop at the collisiondetection. I want the game to seem quite reaslistic, while not being unbalanced. A massive warrior with a huge armor should have a very small chance of evasion, whereas a light rogue with only a dagger equipped should have a really high evasion, plus movementspeed of course, but that's just not enough. Having evasion in the game ruins nothing, it just adds a little bit of chance to the combat, which a combat always has and always should have.

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Original post by Edtharan If you are going to have a back stab mechanic in the game, then you already have to have the requirement of detecting whether or not Player A hit Player B in the back, so this also means no more work than you would have done. You said that there is no room for player placed hits, but then you also said that being hit in the back while running away would deal more damage. Well, being hit in the back or front is really all you need for player placed hits and you seem to be wanting to include these anyway. So what is the problem?

- Will you please stop twisting my words around? Yes, I want to be able to detect whether a unit is hit from behind or front. But I also want to add more than that. I don't want to stop there. As I said already, what I meant was too advanced was something like the combatsystem in Age of Conan, where you control the very direction of your sword.

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Original post by Edtharan You have already stated that you will not be using the random to hit for dodging projectiles, so why include a random to hit for dodging swords? A sword can be seen as a short (very short ranged) projectile.

- Again, you are twisting my words around. I think you knew perfectly well that I was talking about "flying" projectiles. Anything from an arrow to searing firebolt. Something that comes from afar. And a dodge would normally be nothing more than strafing to the side. That would neither look, nor work well with a sword. Dodging the swing of a sword would be way too tacky and unnatural with the controls and type of view this game has at its disposal. To avoid another mans sword, you will be using your skills and your teammates, not running about like a madman while trying to get a few hits in yourself.

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Original post by Edtharan Ok 12 players, that means 6 a side. (...)

- What makes you jump to that conclusion? I haven't said the slightest thing about what kind of game this will really be. A 6v6 battle may very well be one of the possible scenarios of combat in this game, but it most certainly will not be the only scenario of combat this game has to offer, and therefore it should not be put in a box like that, pulling farfetched conclusions from nowhere.

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Original post by Edtharan Action games imply the Twitch element. The Twitch element implies that it is the player's skill that is the most important aspect that determines the outcome of the combat. By getting rid of the twitch element with a random "to hit" mechanic, you break the requirements of an action game.

- No I do not. The skill of a player is still there. It's just that you wont be allowed to control the hits from one enefy factor, which is the melee hits. And just because this is missing, you're saying, completely unfounded, that I've taken the skill away. In this game, a player will be able to make a very extensive, viable and dynamic itembuild for himself because of the looting/crafting-system in this game. A player will be able to choose between a wide arsenal of skills and spells, and he will also choose what to specialize in when it comes to both abilities, stats and weapons among other things. In-combat, the player will be able to dodge incoming projectiles, find the right time to execute skills (combos) and spells, attack at the right time be it behind the enemy or when it is weakened somehow. Also, you must choose your battles. Things like height will have an impact on the chance of a successful hit, and in a narrow hallway there will not be much room for an unlucky warrior to avoid an archers deadly arrows.

And don't forget that teamplay will be of great importance in this game. How you combine your heroes into one fine-tuned machinery is not an easy job. Your abilities and strong sides must match, and not overlapse eachother. And with teamplay comes responsibility. Everyone will have a responsibility to every other player. You will have to communicate well. You'll have to time your skills for your team's benefit, you must keep an open eye for ambushes or dying teammates that could need backup and/or a heal. You must know when the team needs to stand together like one, and when you can spread out and expand your area-control. You should be able to understand that there can be plenty of fast-paced action in a game, even though you can't manually dodge a melee blow...

You started the thread saying this was a fast paced action game and I was pretty excited by the originality in the control system :)

Then you started talking about mathematics and dodge percentages and crafting / searching for items and lost me completely to be honest. It just turns it into another generic stat building RPG.

If your control system alone doesn't lend itself to melee combat then I'm sure you work around that without inventing (reinventing) a whole sub-game based on maths to make it fit?

Edit: If you like the idea of dodging projectiles and casting spells you could even make the game solely about long range combat. You'd get a lot more focus and tactical play out of it.

Don't get me wrong, the game will be fast-paced, but not through choosing in which direction to throw your punches. This game will have a split set of abilities. There will be the spells, which are all about the mysterious wonders of magic (which melees will be using very rarely) and then there's the skills, which works more like combos, and will be used frequently in combat. Many of these skills will have very small cooldowns (if any) and they will be requiring the player's main attention during a close encounter with one or more foes.

A skill can be anything from a special way of swinging a sword, to a quick tackle, swiping your enemy's feet off the ground! The impact of many skills will be reduced by things like a thick armor, but some skills may be designed for the soul purpose of making such obstacles obsolete. You must choose the use of your skills wisely to best counter the movement, gear and special attributes of your foe.

And hey, this thread was first intended to be just about the special kind of movement in this game. Don't think that I've given away every single surprise that I had in store for you. Believe me when I say; I still have some aces up my sleeve ;)

(Btw, if you guys could show me some other RPG/Adventuregames that you feel are truly action-packed and fast-paced, please do refer me to these games so that I can see what I'm up against and maybe get some new inspiration and ideas.)