PlaneShift
Gameplay => Wish list => Topic started by: drah on February 11, 2007, 12:58:02 am
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The new combat system removes a lot of the dependency on player-skill, which in some people's opinion has taken a lot of the fun and excitement out of the game, while others feel the new system is better.
The community seems pretty split on that issue as is evident in the other thread and I'm not trying to create a repeat of that!!
So... with respect to the new combat system, what would you want to keep and what tweaks to the CURRENT system would make it good for PVP too?
I'm not asking for complaints... just suggestions for what would improve it!!
Also, I wanted to ask if anyone has tried using "/stopattack" before "/attack" in their attack shortcut... and then trying to duel that way to see if it's any closer to the old system??
(Of course, this still doesn't allow us to work out the opponents attack timing from their 'flinching' ... but would at least allow one to skillfully time their attack once again.)
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I'd like there to be some kind of player skill involved it was what made it fun. But that's just me. I don't think the Devs would like that at all but one can hope. Anyway this is not a rant it's what i'd like to see let's make that clear.
And let's face it the new system does show some improvement in that it's lost a massive list of bugs attached to it...
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I would like to see many of the existing spells tweaked to be more useful. I think this would make dueling much, much more interesting and less predictable. Also, my suggestions are to tweak current spells, not to add new ones, so should take a relatively small amount of work on the dev's part. Here are some ideas:
All spells: Have spell level make a bigger difference in the damage they inflict. Right now, being 20, 30 or 40 in Red, Crystal or Dark Ways have only a small increase in effect on spells like Missile, Arrow, Flame Burst and Weakness. I think a weak spell should be somewhat strong when cast by a high level mage.
Freeze: Increase the effects of this spell. Cause the victim to be slowed to half speed. If cast on them again, they should be frozen in place for a short time.
Weakness: Allow it to be cast from a longer range than just touch. As it is, you have to stand face to face with the victim for a very long time to complete the spell, and it's impossible to survive that unless your opponent is a very weak noobie. Have the effect be to significantly lower the damage your opponent does (this might already be in effect, but the "touch range" makes it useless so nobody uses it).
Darkness: Have the black cloud be locked on the target instead of the caster, causing them to have hampered vision. Set the spell to last 20 or 30 seconds. Could be very interesting and fun in RPs.
Meteor: This spell currently requires 40 Red Way to cast... yet the max you can train to is 20. Potions must be used to raise Red Way so you can cast it. Even though it is a level 40 spell, it does the same damage as an Energy Arrow (level 20), and takes about 5 times longer to cast. I suggest keeping the slow spell time, but make it do a crap-load of damage, maybe even killing in one hit, since it takes so long to finish casting.
Rock Armor: Right now, it seems quite useless. Have it give a defensive boost, maybe raise armor level temporarily by +10 or +15 or so. Also possibly subtract slightly from magical skill of ways other than Brown to make things more interesting.
Defensive Wind: Possibly have the defender take half damage or even no damage on a successful "save" from magical attacks.
Electrotouch: Cause a significant amount of damage. Considering that it doesn't last long, and only works with melee attacks, it should cause a lot of damage, of course dependent on how trained the character is in the appropriate Way.
Flame Burst: This is a nice spell, but I think it should do more damage from casters with high Red Way.
Flame Spire: Cause more damage.
Stone Fist: Allow us to train high enough to cast this spell. Since this is a very high level spell, it should be powerful. I recommend causing a huge damage bonus from melee attacks (making it useful for someone who wants to play a "monk-type" character).
Flying Stones: This is a higher level spell. It should to a significant amount of damage. I think it does about the same damage as an Energy Arrow, but is much slower to cast. I think that slower-casting spells should do higher damage to make them useful.
I think tweaking these spells, making them more useful, will have a dramatic improvement on dueling, and make duels far more interesting.
-Roahn
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Here is my list for melee weapons combat(For the distant future, if any of this suggestions are accepted, you can be sure it will be a looong way to be implemented):
- Reduce the scope of the Random Numbers used in combat to make the random factor somewhat limited and focus more on the difference between character skills than on luck.
- No one-hit kills weapons(reduce the ridiculous power of silverweaves in other words), with them a character with level 30 in daggers can beat someone with level 70 in swords in a few seconds, also it destroys any feeling of conquest, or of challenge, as you can easily take down anyone.
-Fights between equally skilled and equipped duelists should usually take more time, meaning the amount of dodges, blocks and parrying should be higher than currently.
- There is a better way of blocking hit and run, though more hard to code. Making any attempt of retreating from combat give the other duelist an "attack of opportunity" against the one who tried to withdraw would put a critical and realistic disadvantage against those who exploit such tactics.
- Make weapon ranges matter. A sword is much larger than a dagger, still in a combat the one with a longsword can't stay in combat range before the one with the dagger reaches him.
- Different types of damage should have different effects. Bludgeoning damage from smaller blunt weapons would be easily countered by leather armor but otherwise pretty vulnerable, while a full plate would offer protection against slashing but be easily pierced by a heavy crossbow bolt and chain mails would be strong against slashing but weak against piercing.
- Make the speed a character runs towards his enemy make a difference, charging against someone would give an offensive bonus and a defensive penalty for the first strike for example.
- Allow to target enemies on the sides of the character normally for those equipped with daggers, while using short swords and longswords would increase the attack time for hitting someone on your side, using a broadsword(claymore) would be very hard and block it only for weapons like spears.
- Make a turn 90 degrees and a turn 180 degrees command to aid players into reacting against backstabs or attacks on the side of their characters. the turning speed for the character should be based on Agility.
- Make some variation on the way the characters react in fights automatically to reduce predictability and boredom. IE: characters with a higher INT will automatically take smarter decisions on stances and exploit the enviroment around them for aiding them in combat and also take smart retreats(option may be disabled by players in the case of honorable duelist type of characters) among other things.
- Make the player have choice over the tactical part of the combat, while the physical part is handled by stats and skills or it will become a boring play with dices and stats.
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In keeping with drah's intentions for this thread (I applaud you!) I will remove posts that are not serious suggestions. If you want to complain, you missed the boat.
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As the ideas I putted here will take a long time to be implemented on combat, my immediate suggestion is:
- Keep the previous, and also flawed, player skill based combat system or take away or reduce the power of the current one hit kills weapons, the combat lacks any feeling of epicness due to the short duration of it.
*Edited
> Added more details
> Removed obsolete comment about certain deleted post
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It's cool.. I think I was just trying to keep the debate open.. but maybe in a more focussed way.. so we can focus on positives and with the problem we feel we're experiencing.. to suggest what would help alleviate those problems.
YES.. Gharin (Gharan) is correct... I want to avoid this going in the direction the other thread took.
Thank you for giving this thread a chance Karyuu... I think the topic is worth debating as it is quite a major element of PS... but I also don't want it to degrade into a flamefest like that other thread did and I appreciate that is also the last thing you want too.
[ Edited for language. --Karyuu ]
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In keeping with drah's intentions for this thread (I applaud you!) I will remove posts that are not serious suggestions. If you want to complain, you missed the boat.
sorry but you deleted my post which was answer on Drah's question...
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I did not see it as a suggestion - it was from the old thread and I didn't see your input besides "the old system was better." If I was mistaken, please accept my apologies and repost it!
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Was the instant-hit a bug? the one Datruth reported in another thread, i mean. If so, this bug is not to be added to the list of fixed bugs, since i had several instant kills, after the update. So it is STILL ingame.
Anyway, for to improve this new system, and I think "make it back to the old one" doesnt count here, i would suggest:
1) make the radius of facing wider. at least to 90, but way more welcome 180 degrees to the front. I got the message "you must face the enemy" so often, because i was looking 5 degrees too far to the left and so.
2) make the messages "you are too far away to attack" and " you must face your enemy" go OUT of the middle of the screen.
3) since the people keep staying in stance from the beginning on, they slide all the time now. make sure they keep the running animation (not a real improvement, but it just looks silly now)
4) let the system tab show the stance changes, that are hidden/invisible now, but are happening all the time, when people stay in "fighting mode". It will represent the initiation of the actual slashing animation, until those are implemented some time
These are my suggestions, and yes, they would make the new system get closer to the old one. But i made em now, because I prefered the hit&run duels, and as long as i dont get banned for dueling that way, i wont stop doing it. If you like it or not, duel me, and you will see me fighting that way.
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One other thing I would like to see changed: Make the side-step speed more than slug-speed. Right now, it's like everybody are moving on unicycles: fast forward and backward, not side-stepping. I think this would make combat much more interesting. Side-steps used to be much faster, a year ago, and I never understood why that was made to be super-slow.
-Roahn
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I suggested this earlier, and I don't think it differs too much from the original code. Instead of having to face your target, IMO the attack radius should simply be placed in front of your character. Why? Realistically there is significant disadvantage to attacking someone without facing them, although it is perfectly possible. I also suggested something similar to what Roahn suggested (along with making moving backwards slower).
Now, personally I believe that facing the opponent isn't that big of a deal, and that staying in a stance isn't that big of a deal either. The problem is a bug, NOT the system, which is the insta attack bug. Use the stop attack button, it's one more bloody key, if you're that lazy I'd suggest seeing a doctor, as it can't be good that every muscle in your body has atropheed.
I was told by some that moving while fighting is now considered an exploit, but from what I've seen here it doesn't seem to be the case. Therefor I will continue to move while I duel... if it is to be considered an exploit, I doubt I will stay with this game much longer.
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Personally I feel that the duel system has changed but not away from player skill. It just requires a new skill .. the skill of flanking and attacking your oponent from behind where they are defenseless. This also creates a lot of tactical oppertunities for actual group battles and guild wars.
I do understand that the people who were rather good with the old system are disappointed now that their hardearned player skill is rendered useless. But I wonder, since everyone was so quick to complain about the new system, have any of you really taken the chance to learn to work with it? I've never been much of a dueler so I can't say that I liked the previous system .. but I also can't say that I have tried the new system on anything but NPCs so far.
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One other thing I would like to see changed: Make the side-step speed more than slug-speed. Right now, it's like everybody are moving on unicycles: fast forward and backward, not side-stepping. I think this would make combat much more interesting. Side-steps used to be much faster, a year ago, and I never understood why that was made to be super-slow.
-Roahn
That certainly needs to be done; although, doing so would require changing the side-step animations to have the front leg cross over the back leg and then having the back leg step out instead of the "shuffling" that side-stepping is now.
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Personaly i think that the system should be changed to make there be a lot more blocks parrys and dodges because thaty is how it was those days fights could last up to an hour because the fighters were good fast and knew how to use their weapon well also i think that the sidestep should be made faster because thats the most popular dodge move also people complain about too big weapon damadges but has anyone tried to fight with a hole in their chest ? didnt think so
Also i was thinking that all weapons should do rougly the same damadge only some weapons would pierce armor easyer or be better forged and faster.
Hope its usefull
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That certainly needs to be done; although, doing so would require changing the side-step animations to have the front leg cross over the back leg and then having the back leg step out instead of the "shuffling" that side-stepping is now.
I'd make the animation 'a hop to the side' personally
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That certainly needs to be done; although, doing so would require changing the side-step animations to have the front leg cross over the back leg and then having the back leg step out instead of the "shuffling" that side-stepping is now.
I'd make the animation 'a hop to the side' personally
You both are correct
Kaerli is speaking about walkin mode and Zan about running mode.
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From an athletic point of view, the last thing you want to do is cross your feet. We're not running karaoke's here.
Personally I feel that the duel system has changed but not away from player skill. It just requires a new skill .. the skill of flanking and attacking your oponent from behind where they are defenseless. This also creates a lot of tactical oppertunities for actual group battles and guild wars.
Now that's something I hadn't thought about until now. Think, now we finally have a job for all those commander type ranks in warrior guilds! :)
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I was using the stop attack while dueling the other night. I was still able to time my hits. There does seem to be a certain radius of attack in front of the player. I would make greater attack radius and side and backward attacks a function of skill, stats and weapon types. Maybe an attack skill at high level that spun you around to face an attack who came up on you from behind. I do feel that the new system has tactics, just different from what we had before. Faster side-stepping would really be nice.
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I would like to have aiming in combat system. For example when you see a heavy armoured warrior with no armor on his hands you should attack him on them. And some monsters as well should have "weaker places". The chance to hit the correct place should decrease with agility of enemy and amount of drunk beers. :D
The other thing are some special attacks. This is included in many other RPG so why it should't be in PS. With incerasing your skill in some weapon you should become able to cast some extra mana/stamina consuming attacks (like double damage, hit and run ...)
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Well now that I've actually had the time to try out the new combat system I can only say that it has improved significantly. There is no more need to spam the attack button and switching stances can actually be done now without always going out of the stance because you're out of range. I also like that you can only hit your opponent when they are infront of you.
I do have some remarks for improvement though:
- The big red texts:
Saying "You're out of range" or "You must face your opponent." ... at least make it so that they only appear once and don't spam the screen. Personally I wouldn't make them appear on the screen at all. A simple notion in the systems tab is more than enough for this.
- Mental stamina:
It decreases constantly from the second you enter combat ... even when you're not hitting anyone or anything because you're too far away or aren't facing in the right direction. This isn't very realistic and it makes sure that your mental stamina runs out very fast. I would like to see mental stamina only being drained when you actually launch an attack. This means you're within range and you are facing your opponent. It can still be that your attack misses or is blocked but at least you attacked.
- Running in combat:
Now this is one that will most likely find a whole lot of opposition but I'm still going to suggest it. Disable running in combat. When I dueled my opponent was running around like crazy so I was forced to do the same. The result is a very unrealistic and chaotic fight. In reality you don't run around like crazy in battle because you'll tire yourself out and you won't be able to place a single good hit.
So my suggestion is to either disable running completely from the moment you enter a stance. The only thing you can do is walk backwards, forwards, jump/hop/dash (with the space keyby default) short distances and strafe (faster than it is now but not too fast). Or even better would be that running is still possible but from the moment you run, you stop dealing any damage but are instead completely vunerable to incoming hits. Basically automatically switching to a bloody stance but without attacking.
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personaly i like this new system it more relistic without removeing to muvch fun from the game and stops a lot of bugs and hopefully stop ppl hitting attack 30 time a second and getting either a lag or lucky kill in. and i dont know about stop attack in a shortcut with attack all you really have to do is add another button. i.e instead of haveing one to target and attack you now need another button to stop an attack its all it is another button.