New combat system

[Dracaeon]

I have an idea for a new combat system.  There are a few gray areas that I'm not too sure what to do about, but any input would be great .

     Basic Combat Combat is an entirely first person thing.  Your blade [or blades] follow your mouse, and you left-click to move your blade forward.  You can either single click [as a thrust] or click and hold, swinging your mouse in the direction you want to blade to go [as a slash].  Enemies, monster or otherwise, should all have a weak point, such as unprotected skin, a crack in armor, etc.  You'll want to aim for these, otherwise you will do minimal damage or none at all.  To block, you just right-click and try to follow the opponents attack, then, if your good, you can follow through with a thrust or something.  I'm not sure about two-weapon combat, the second weapon might just follow your mouse like the first one, but this seems awkward and it will prevent fancy two-handed swordplay.  Again, any input would be great.  Some weapons, like a pike or bow, will require two hands to use.

     Bows  Bows are used in first person as well.  To use the bow, click and hold to set the power.  Let go to set it, and then aim by moving your mouse.  There is a thin blue line that appears, to show the trajectory of the arrow [can be disabled for hardcore users], and then single click to fire.  Fairly simple.  All bows will also have a quality that gets lower with use, like normal weapons.  But all bows will have another important number: the draw weight.  This number determines how strong the bow is, and whether or not you can use it.  If a draw weight exceeds the users strength, aim will be very wobbly and you won't be able to use the bows full strength.  The highter above your strength the draw weight is, the worse these condidtions get.  If crossbows will ever be used in Planeshift, they will operate by pretty much the same system, except that you can't use a crossbow that has a draw weight higher than your strength.  Its impossible, since you can't pull the bowstring all the way back.  The only exception, however, is mechanical crossbows, or pump crossbows, that have the bowstring pulled back mechanically, therefore not requiring strength from the user.  Draw weight will only determine bow strength.
                       
     Magic  Magic is in first person, like all the rest.  Most spells will go straight, making it possible that you will miss the target, although these spells are normally stronger, spells such as Energy Arrow; while some spells will follow the target, making it impossible to miss, although they will get weaker the farther away from the caster they get.  These spells aren't very strong, normally, an example being Taste of Death.  And , finally, some spells will effect the area around you, such as healing spells.  Pretty straightforward.

     Targeting  Targeting will only be used in the homing spells, or to better recognize who you are fighting in a large brawl [although you can fight several people at once, or jump from one enemy to the other, without pausing to  press an attack button.  Combat is only exited when you want it to be, at the press of a button.

     Input would be great, please tell me if you have any suggestions or if I forgot something.  Thank you for your time.

[Earowo]

in my opinion its an ok sytem, and i've seen it before, but i've been so used to bein in 3rd person all the time, it seems like a hassle to have to be in 1st for combat, and it might tick some people off if they the battle system to that..
id say stick with what it is already, it works dont it?

[Dracaeon]

The system we have no works fine, but I get  so BORED just watching my guy hack 'n slash at an enemy, especially when I have to fight for a long time.  Maybe we can just ahve a choice, for some users they can have the old one, for some my system.

[Akkaido Kivikar]

1) Most people play PlaneShift in 3rd Person View.

2) Your idea would not suit an MMORPG, as the amount of network messaging to send detailed attacks back and forth would cause alot of lag.

The idea needs a fair bit of refining to suit an MMO (unlike FPS games where there's only 16-32 players, in MMOs there can be up to 100 in one place for grander RPs and events, perhaps even a battle.

[Vornne]

Sounds like you want to play Mount & Blade Warband, with the addition of magic

That sort of combat system is great fun, but I wonder whether it would fit very well with the rest of PlaneShift; if you enjoy the fast paced player skill based aspect, where would the roleplaying part fit in? A lot of roleplayers seem to enjoy more choreographed fights rather than taking all possible advantage of the game mechanics...

It probably could be done, but I'd say it would be extremely difficult to implement, especially in a MMO. Most of the games with fast paced physics based combat run on servers with limited player slots.

[Sarras Volcae]

bow idea would be better with just click and hold draws string, then let loose fires the arrow. feels realistic that way. and no trajectory line, that's noobish wouldn't be able to see it in 1st person anyway

a combat system like this would actually make more sense if you wanted an rp-oriented atmosphere. more immersion makes more roleplay. i find the current combat system un-immersive because i barely have control of my char. it's also boring as hell... most mmorpgs are like that though.

may sound fun, but this would be really laggy in an mmorpg. i lag using a combat system like this in one player games. online probably won't work.

[BLERGHtrue]

incorporating bows would be a good idea. If you just turned it into a set of new animations (for xbows /& bows) with a meter similar to the mage casting meters ...

(and if the 'shoot' is interrupted, instead of the arrow would be cancelled the bow would shoot at where the meter was standing. so for example, if the enemy attacked when the meter was half-way, the shot would be half the power. But a linear form of damage respective to the meter-level wouldn't be advised, as in real life the power level VS how far the bow has been pulled out would be more like an exponential pattern)

....and except releasing when clicked, as you say, 'power levels' determined by the skills of strength &/ ranged. Instead of using up mana, perhaps the user uses up physical stamina and mental stamina (more physical stamina for bows, more mental stamina for xbows? Maybe we should just stick with one type of bow for simplicity xD we don't want something unfinished like the different ways of magic. quality over quantity!...after determining priorities. but that's another story.)

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i can't say i agree with the first person idea..unless you changed the combat interface altogether (getting rid of clicking etc). It's much easier to RP (and play) when you can SEE yourself doing the actions. I'd tell ya, sitting down is a whole lot harder when in first person, i've tried.

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the mouse-following-blade thing IS a nice idea (i've played games that do that) but it definitely would lag the server more..and our computers. Not to mention RP might get a bit more awkward with these (we accidently move when we're supposed to stand still..or when we're talking). I see far too many people accidently clicking out and running into walls as it is (like myself). If you dedicate movement to the position of the mouse, turning and standing still would be extremely difficult in first person (going back to my previous argument).

I suppose you could have a button shortcut for enabling/disabling the mouse-follow. The 'weak point' thing seems a bit complicated...it would be easier to assign this job to an 'accuracy' skill for critical hits. Perhaps we should make certain body areas more affecting than others when attacked i.e., feet = less damage, torso = more damage, and when the 'accuracy' skill is higher there would be more hits to these sentive areas. Or, to prevent creating another mass of skills for a character, we could just combine 'accuracy' with 'willpower' because this skill increases concentration and self-control, am i correct? Or is that only in dire situations.

--
As for magic...i haven't enough knowledge of it to discuss it xD But if you suggested spells to weaken as the distance increases, then the same should go for bows. If the target is moving, i can't see a simple solution. I don't know enough (or anything at all) about programming, but i think there's a big different between targeting interactions with NPCs and having all NPCs in the (realistically) observable area to interact at any given moment, at once or nay.

[Dracaeon]

Well, since everyones argueing that people are used to third-person, then I suppose we could have this system in third-person.  If you're in third person follow, you character is translucent, so you can see your enemy and your blades.  By the way, some people seem confused, but this is not for all the time, it is for combat mode only.

 Sarras, think:  If we just pulled back and let go to shoot, how would we cancel a shot if, say, you clicked by accident or something?  It would waste an arrow.  And the line is optional, and not noobish

[Dermathil]

Sarras, think:  If we just pulled back and let go to shoot, how would we cancel a shot if, say, you clicked by accident or something?  It would waste an arrow.  And the line is optional, and not noobish

I know a very easy way to cancel a shot. Right-click.

[Sarras Volcae]

Sarras, think:  If we just pulled back and let go to shoot, how would we cancel a shot if, say, you clicked by accident or something?  It would waste an arrow.  And the line is optional, and not noobish

you could cancel with another button

lines aren't realistic is what i meant... would be too hard to see anyway in first person. one should learn the trajectory instead. idk, i don't like that idea

[luizera]

I like your ideas. I think the combat system is the main reason why I give up mmorpgs so often. But a melee combat system that works is something quite difficult to accomplish. I think Jedi Knight games do it well. It's all in 3rd person, except when you're using a gun, and you can trigger nice moves with simple combinations of attack and movement buttons. There is another game called Rune that is all about blade fighting, it's in 3rd person also but I can't remember how good it was. I don't remember if there was ranged weapons in this game either, but you could throw axes and swords at your enemies.

I would like to see something like this done, but I don't know how difficult is to implement or how it would affect game performance. The community reception may not be so good too...     

[nanderv]

It doesn't have to generate a lot of traffic, it's just a different imput system. Instead of the server randoming hit or miss, the client just sends a hit to the server if it's a hit, and miss if it's a miss. The hq movement idea is nice, but that requires a very high server load. It could also just be aiming like in a first person shooter, and if you cast an attack, the server will get a message, and also for hit or miss. The attacks still are default ones, but the combat is much more entertaining.

[RlyDontKnow]

It doesn't have to generate a lot of traffic, it's just a different imput system. Instead of the server randoming hit or miss, the client just sends a hit to the server if it's a hit, and miss if it's a miss.

definetely not. that'd be by *far* too exploitable - you could just tweak your client to always hit which doesn't make sense.

[novacadian]

Another consideration that may want to be considered is the lag experienced by some players. With combat results taking place on the server; with only the results being sent to the client; then even if lagged one can expect that their character is still struggling on through the fog of lag. The system suggested would create a strong disadvantage for players who experience lag through their connection; because of hardware of other reasons.

- Nova

[zinder]

Allowing the client to determine hit or miss is inviting disaster. The system the OP describes practically requires zero lag, too. Otherwise where you aim at isn't actually where your target is.

ANd the Magic system is not only way too simple, but not well thought out either. For example Healing only as an area centered on you is a bad idea. For one it gets heales into the thick of combat, where they shouldn't be. You also need a way to determine who should be affected by this area effect or the target gets a heal too. It also drops tactical and strategical considerations of spells. For example a "Touch of Death" can be a real touch spell. A "Heaven's Strike" can be a blast dropping down from above hitting things on its way down, but nothing between the caster and the target and work only under the Crystal. A "Fire Rock" can be lobbed on a ballistic  arc over a wall. Spells can effect anything in an arc.