but that's not how it works in real life.

in real life, up to certain point in an attack, say half way between attack start and weapon impact, you can "change your mind" and react to what the opponent is doing. your "new move" won't be as effective as if it was your original move, cause you don't have time to fully execute it, just sort of. you would not have enough time to react twice, but you would be able to react once if done quickly enough. speed or dex checks might come into play here as well. if you tried a second move after the time window had passed, it would be ignored, and you would simply continue the original move.

yes, but only so much. in real life you have to "commit" otherwise you end up with a very bland move that isn't as effective as it could be.

unless you rely on being a 'feinty' type, someone that tries to wear down the opponent with lots of small hits rather than a few powerful and effective hits.

in either case IRL there's often situations where you end up in a bad place where you cannot recover from. I do my share of sword sparring with a friend and it's the case :)

bottom line: for me "changing your mind" is a perfectly valid choice to give to players, just not in a way they can abuse. M&B handles this with feints (which I do in my game as well)

moves should never be queued, only polled at high frequency. queued moves prevent you from changing your mind when you should still be able to. "oh, look, my pea shooter won't go though this guys armor! ok, i'll switch to my bmf gun. oh wait, i clicked fire a bunch of times, and this POS queued them up. now i sit here for a couple seconds watching myself shoot and reload to no effect before i can change weapons. oh wait, i'm dead! thanks a lot - GD queued input! who the h--l wrote this s--t? oh yeah, bethesda - shoulda known". i experienced this as recently as last night playing fallout new vegas. that's a definite "bad designer - no twinkie". i don't think that's the kind of gaming experience anyone wants to deliver to their users. yet companies do it all the time. i guess they just do think about the ramifications of their design choices enough - (or at all?).

I only queue moves when they are performed almost at the end of the current move.

this came from player feedback that it was hard to time a subsequent attack efficiently because in an animation-based combat system (with your standard animation blending system) it's really hard to know exactly when the attack finished. when I didn't have any queuing at all, on a playsession I could see the player effectively spamming the attack button for the next attack (which I wanted to avoid)

>> the veteran hero or the shaolin master can still fail due to different factors (multi-enemy fights, fatigue, etc). yes they will prevail most times but if it's like Assassin's Creed then it already feels wrong

all i'm saying is more experienced combatants would be better at "counter-moves" or "reaction moves". obviously, you can only dodge so many bullets at once or some finite number of bullets before fatigue overcomes you.

all good there. it's all a matter of, if this is part of the player skill or the character skill.

and no I don't mean button mashing skill. I mean skill through the game mechanics, like a veteran player from shooters of the 2000's (like Quake3) would completely destroy an average player by his player skill - not only aiming and shooting but moving, positioning, situational weapon selecting, jumping, bunnyhopping, etc

the reference to assassin's creed is lost on me. i don't play games that aren't first person view - unrealistic - too arcade-ish - too easy - a crutch for those who can't mentally track a target outside their field of view - and thus would suck at combat in real life. sad but true. not everyone is a natural born fighter pilot.

in asssassin's creed enemies take turns to hit you :D

right now i use direction of attack (direction vector from target center to attacker center) to determine which "side" is hit (front, back, left, right, top, bottom), and then use a hit location table and die roll to determine the area hit. the next step is to use the impact point of the weapon at the time of attack resolution (time of weapon impact) to determine which area on the appropriate table is hit, instead of using a die roll. if the attack is from the front against a bipedal target, if the impact point is high and center its a head hit, mid and center is body, mid left and right are arms, and low left and right are legs. this way the player could go for head, body, sword arm, etc. odds are i'll be adding this to caveman at some point. along with the "counter move" mechanic.

sounds good.

if/when you add this, you're likely to encounter that between the aiming, positioning of the enemy and the "delayed" nature of the hits of an anim-based melee combat (vs. the instant hits from a gun in a shooter) locational damage becomes much less predictable than what you'd first imagine (predictability and precision expectation are more accurate in proportion to the speed of your combat)

>> M&B handles this with feints (which I do in my game as well)

so the feint is a quick action/attack to be followed by a full attack? is the AI programmed to both perform and fall for feints?

>> because in an animation-based combat system (with your standard animation blending system) it's really hard to know exactly when the attack finished.

yes, things get a bit fuzzy in such systems. it would be nice if there was a way to get the motion fidelity without the fuziness. but unless the blend periods are very short compared to the runtimes for an attack ani, the line between one action and the next is unclear. and short blend times are almost akin to no blending if short enough.

such a system may really call for something other than the traditional input-animate method. perhaps something more like input-animate-blend IE cut a bit off the start and end of of attacks, devote it to blending, and adjust the time when input is accepted to make it all work out - probably poll sooner, before the previous frame ends. similar to what you do now with queueing to address responsiveness.

do you require a button release before the next attack? i dont. they can just hold down the button and keep swinging or firing. of course whether the attack occurs at a favorable time and in a favorable direction is another matter entirely.

>> all good there. it's all a matter of, if this is part of the player skill or the character skill. and no I don't mean button mashing skill. I mean skill through the game mechanics, like a veteran player from shooters of the 2000's (like Quake3) would completely destroy an average player by his player skill - not only aiming and shooting but moving, positioning, situational weapon selecting, jumping, bunnyhopping, etc

ok, now you're getting down to the brass tacks. when everybody in the room is stumped by console shooter, they hand me the controller and say "here man, you're good at this stuff" - and i've never even owned a console. i think call of jaraez with about half a dozen of the "boys on the block" - IE the dads - at my neighbor's house was the last time.

the player will have these skills (or not). the player can also learn them - i'll often watch friends play and coach them on the finer points of "working a level".

the character should also have some such skills where appropriate. things like skill in parry or dodge or stealth. so when the player attempts them, the character is more effective at completing them as their proficiency in that skill increases. thinks like when to move, where to move, use of cover, weapon selection, ammo selection, maintaining situational awareness of the battlefield environment, etc. are not really skills of the character that increase. they are knowledge that the player does or doesn't have (or use). of course a game could always hand hold you though such things. i've seen shooters where they silhouette where you should move next, and things like that. they are kind of immersion breaking though. and definitely excessive hand holding for the experienced shooter player.

>> in asssassin's creed enemies take turns to hit you :D

only one attacks at a time? OMG! you've GOT to be kidding! (obviously i've never played it). that's assasin's creed?

my neighbor was playing something like that the other day, sleeping dogs - definitive edition. there it sort of worked, being a martial arts title. but i suspect that once you got the hang of it, it would become too easy. i'm actully tempted to see if there's a PC port and to try it myself despite the 3rd person only view and the fact that its hard coded mission based shooter. the martial arts and setting are very cool.

>> if/when you add this, you're likely to encounter that between the aiming, positioning of the enemy and the "delayed" nature of the hits of an anim-based melee combat (vs. the instant hits from a gun in a shooter) locational damage becomes much less predictable than what you'd first imagine (predictability and precision expectation are more accurate in proportion to the speed of your combat)

i'm not animation blending, so no fuzziness. but there is the 1/3 second between attack and resolution, requiring player anticipation and leading of the target. and the primitive bow is the highest muzzle velocity projectile weapon in the game, so even missiles are not "instant". my best record for a bow shot in the game had a travel time to target of almost 2 seconds.

http://www.gamedev.net/gallery/image/6910-my-best-bow-shot-ever-in-the-game/

http://www.gamedev.net/gallery/image/6911-best-bow-shot-ever-close-up/

i don't expect "you think and the bullet goes there". this is not like shooting a colt .45 combat commander with bright nickle finish and Pachmayr grips in real life. (talk about a sweet gun!). you'll go for the head, but they will attack, and you'll hit the arm - that kind of stuff. it should turn out to be pretty be cool, sometimes crazy, occasionally frustrating, and a good fun challenge, just like real combat. it should also replace some contrived randomness (hit location die rolls) with true randomness (the interplay of your moves and theirs and where you aim).