PlaneShift
Gameplay => Wish list => Topic started by: Soyokaze on January 06, 2004, 04:04:24 am
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I\'ve seen many FPRPGS where ranged weapons are handled very badly, and others where they work very well. As combat is in it\'s early stages of developement this should be a seriose topic of discussion at this point. Here we will share our views on how ranged combat should work. Cases of good ranged weapons we\'ve seen in games, and cases of badly done ranged weapons By ranged weapons I refer to all kinds of Bows, Crossbows, throwing weapons, and the like.
In many games the bow is all but useless. I want to see that someone with a bow can take down someone with a sword if skill or statistics lean in his favor. I\'d like to see the ability to arc your fire and drop arrows on far foes. Being able to do so makes for long ranged combat on a medievil battlefield scope. Melee fighters in front and groups of archers launching arrows into the crowd of enemy soldiers. Bows should be more effective at this long range when grouped with other bowman as to deliver a hail of arrows. They should be better against unarmored and light armor but weak against heavy armor and heavy sheilds. In this way a group of warriors can charge the archers and reach them only losing a few men if the archers are unsuported. The damage shouldn\'t be limited so that they are insufficient against strong opponents, but based on the user\'s strength and dexterity (or equivilent stats) increase in effect. Varied kinds of arrows can also change the effect. Elementaly enchanted arrows, cheaply made arrows, fine iron headed arrows, masterwork complex arrows, poisen tipped arrows, etc. This could even enhance any weapons working trade skill by mixing and matching arrow-heads, shafts, and fletchings to create custom arrows. Bolts for crossbows should be treated much the same but with standard statistics, only the player\'s hit/miss should be effected by stats. It should be the best of the three for close range. The low level crossbow user should be able to deal more damage than the low level long-bow user, but at higher levels the long-bow has more potential. This excludes enchanted items of course. Thrown weapons should be the very quite with low range and capable of critical hits. Stealthy weapons for use by thieves, bounty hunters, and the like. A player should be able to specialise in the use of the three supported with magics suited to this skill and remain leathal even if compromising close range. Of course at close range the sword must almost always win, with exeption to the crossbow in some cases.
Thoughts?
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i agree on some levels. I think an exposed jugular shot should take down any person one hit. I mean no one survives a shot to the jugular. Bows should be so hard to use that even though some shots are one shot one kill using bows would be discouraged. First person view should be obtainable when using a bow and aiming it should actually be aiming it. Not jut shooting and if it hits them some sort of random dice decides what damage it does... but since the game wont really develope around combat i guess all of my ideas are irrelevent....
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It\'s an MMORPG, combat is an unavoidable issue. I to would like to see a lot of skill and good equiptment required, but possible 1 shot kills. I\'m immagining large guild VS guild battles on open plains in my head here, but hey we have 100,000 players right? :D I just realy don\'t want to be forced to use a broadsword AGAIN.
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ok this is an MMORPG, and NO ONE SHOT KILLS, if it was a FPS then maybe, but this is an mmorpg, so instead how about if it hits ya in a spot with less armor then the other spots it does more damage, like say ive got a helm with 12 AR and a cuirass with 19, hitting my head would do more dmg cause of less armor, but if they were both 19 AR then the head should still do alittle bit more dmg, but not much
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Yes, luck must not be a critical part of a rpg combat. And aiming is irrelevant since some people will be disavantaged by lag.
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That makes things like arc fire or whatever irrelevant too.
\"In many games the bow is all but useless.\"
That means that they\'re NOT useless, are you aware of that?
Bow shouldnt be useless, but it also shouldnt be overpowered, as I\'ve seen in some other games. Weapon balancing is very important and it\'s gonna take the devs a lot of time to make sure certain skills or classes arent greatly disadvantaged.
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I like the retical for ranged weapons , so your hit or miss chance isn\'t based soley on your skill. I think though if you have a low ranged skill you retical will be very unstable and maybe the arrow wouldn\'t go where you were aiming any way. I don\'t think 1 shot kills would be fair though,although realistic you should be able to wipe out a huge rock oger by hitting it in the eye. melee user don\'t have a chance at a 1 hit kill so ranged users shouldn\'t either.
I like the idea of customizable ammo though ,and maybe having a local mage throw on a fire spell or 2 would also be possible.
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Definately no one-shot kills... nobody likes an AWP-er (unless they\'re on your team). Aiming would be nice, but the lag issue would probably crush all hopes of such a thing. -ah savor the days of a relatively unbusy PS- Perhaps you should be able select what body part you want to shoot at, without actually aiming FPS style.
Different arrowheads would be nifty, a steel arrow is going to hit a rock golem harder than a little stone thing, but stone arrows would be rediculously cheap.
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first i think bow users should not be able to fire arrows in close range combat.that makes no sense and is absolutely impossible.
anyone ever played daoc?
if you wear a chain armour than piercing arrows make more damage,if you wear a magerobe than slash tips make more damage.if you have the right arrow and you make a critical than you can kill chars with low hp like mages in a single shot.
but once you are infight you are practically lost.
that way a bow user can do vast damage,as he should be able to,but he always has to avoid getting to close.
only thing in daoc i didnt like was that scouts could stun you with their shield for 8 seconds.
so they took out their bow and fired another critical at you.
no chance to beat them.
so make them killer at long range,let them suck in closecombat.
that is more or less all i would like to see.
the rest i will just let the devs surprise me^^
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There should be different types of bows. Has anyone ever played Thief or Thief 2? Well, there should be one bow like that, a standard long-bow, a short bow, a composit long-bow etc. And for those who haven\'t played any of the thief games, tyhe bow was basicly a normal bow (duh) with a little square attached to the side to help accuracy.
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Please, please, put a javellin in the game, i relly love to use Anbidextry and javellin... it\'s my dream :)
And a one head-shot kill hehe
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The damage of the bows and crossbows i think should be chanced(go the dice! :P) within a small range of damage eg. 200 - 220 The more skill or accuracy you have the more dmg you do
one shot kill should be allowed but be used in a more fair way. So the more skill you have the more chance it is to kill in one shot(more chance to hit the bullseye)and weaker or slower the monster is. Even if the damage doesnt reach its health it may kill like a unskilled or dumber monster.
This has to be a very low chance maybe 0.1 on a very fast and smart monster and the char is highly skilled in the bow and crossbow and for a newb monster probably 75 % (haha die monster die :D).
... im confusing myself ?( so if some of it is wrong dont blame me :D
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Ranged weapons always cause a bit of a headache to programmers, I think. That is why many games have used an overly simplistic approach when implementing these weapons.
Ideal system, you say? Very well, let me toss a few things into the hodge podge, and decide upon strengths and advantages of each point:
a) Projectile\'s path: When using ranged weapons, if a person is standing between the attacker and the target, said obstacle will be damaged.
The downside of this is the lag that inherently comes with Online gaming and the presence of many models and polygons on screen. Not to mention the stress caused to the server, who now needs to calculate paths between two objects to decide if the target is the one to be wounded or a third random object.
b) Distance: There would be a range of maximum efficiency for the weapon. The longer the distance, the slower the projectile\'s speed, the less the damage.
If the target stands too close, the arrow will not reach its maximum speed, the velocity of the impact between the arrowhead and the body will not be the highest attainable.
Downside of this? Complicated damage equations.
c) Fatal strikes: Self explanatory, a head shot, a perforated heart, etcetera, would incur in instant kill.
Downsides: Gameplay is affected by Counter-Strike masters that are capable of sniping with any projectile weapon. Also, if ranged weapons have this feature, melee weapons should possess it too (A fatal skull-cracking smash with a warhammer, or a slit throat with a dagger, or a stab in the heart...you call it). It has a consequence a very complex combat system with almost random chances of death (since as far as I know we don\'t control how our character swings the weapon)...very annoying.
d) Material fatigue: Bows are fragile instruments in comparison to melee weapons, which were designed to tolerate heavy blows. After a while, the stress caused by the constant firing of arrows would cause bows (particularly long bows) to snap in half. This is because the bow actually bends when charging up an arrow, the pressure is accumulated not in the tips, but the center of the bow.
Crossbows, with their moving parts and rather fragile gears, do not enjoy a long life either.
Downsides: Need to buy new weapons more often. Even so, it is realistic, and I find this idea rather nifty, if you ask me.
May think of more when rested.
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I\'d like an increased focus on ranged weapons. While melee weaponry is nice, it\'s a little impractical in a world based on flashy magic spells designed to blow up one quarter of the planet (most fantasy games). It would probably be easiest to do this by implementing guns. Their straight-forward aiming system would be easiest to implement, I think.
A first-person shooter interface for ranged weaponry would probably be as close to ideal as possible. I wish there was a way to implement peripheral vision in first-person mode. I guess that\'s what ambient sounds are for. Aiming and firing would be similar to most FPSs.
Now, while ranged weaponry would be extremely powerful, I don\'t really think allowing one-hit-kills fits with the MMORPG environment. At the same time, I feel that one should be rewarded for hitting vital zones. I would say a simple multiplier to damage (like +50% for head shots, and +25% for pinky shots) depending on where the shot hits would work. Added effects for hitting certain body parts would also be something to look into. For example, if you hit someone in the leg, your target would lose a bit of mobility temporarily. Maybe the effect could last a certain amount of time until the character is healed with a spell.
To encourage multi-class communication, ranged weaponry should require ammo to fire. Ammo would have varying properties, but most of the stronger effect ammo (like freezing bullets) should only be available by making them from scratch. One class could make the basic bullet, while a more magical class could imbue it with certain properties (like homing, burning, exploding). The type of material used in constructing the basic ammo would affect its base power and its ability to be enhanced with magic.
When it comes to skills, one should be able to learn things to enhance things like draw speed, reload rate, chance to cause the target to flinch, accuracy when moving, and accuracy for multiple shots fired in succession. There could even be a skill that causes bullets fired to ricochet off walls to enhance effective range. The effects of most of these skills should probably be minor but noticeable.
I\'d try to stay away from leveling or experience (of any sort) providing major combat benefits, especially in ranged combat. This may be because I\'m not a big fan of the experience point and the tedium and gods it tends to bring with it. Skill caps should probably be kept low and a global cap should be enforced to keep people from being masters at everything. So in this case, a gunner may have to choose from being accurate in all situations, being able to shoot shots in faster succession, or being an all-rounder.
That\'s all I have now. It may not be all that great for this game (considering our current server), but you did say ideal.
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Globez:Your ideas sound very good and realistic. But i dont think that you have to get a new bow when it breaks i think you just have to repair it at a blacksmith or someone else.
If it breaks and it is a very good item it wont be that easy to find it again so its better to just repair it. The blacksmiths should be able to fix any broken or damaged equipment.
Finfreeze: Guns!? i though this was supposed to be early times with bows and swords. Other than that it sounds interesting.
Ive played CS before and it is quite laggy with only guns, a small environment and a few people. Imagine guns, swords, daggers and bows, a gigantic environment and tens of thousands of people and try to aim in that. It would be pretty hard to aim.
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Ranged weapons will not be in CB but we will have a full set of them and I really think they will be cool.
(How can you not watch the elves fighting at Helm\'s Deep in TTT and not want cool range weapons? :-) ).
- Venge
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Just a couple of miscellaneous points. First, an arrow wound is generally less deadly than, say, a sword wound in terms of killing you instantly, I think. Even if its arguable which is deadlier, they both can do it. A sword and an arrow can both kill you in one hit. That doesn\'t mean it\'s fun to have in the game. Dieing in one hit generally isn\'t fun for the players.
Just a little clarification, when the arrow leaves the bow its moving at its maximum speed in almost any case. The exceptions are if air friction is somehow negative or if the arrow has some sort of mechanism propelling it forward, such as a rocket engine tied to the back of it.
Another point, the major drawback of the bow is that it\'s totally ineffective in melee. Readying the arrow, pulling back the string, aiming the bow, and releasing all takes a little time, and its made much more difficult by an axe swinging at your head. Extensive dodging of attacks would probably knock the arrow out of the bow and you\'d need to start all over again. Additionally, using a bow leaves you almost totally vulnerable to attacks since you can\'t hold a shield and you can\'t deflect attacks with the bow (at least not without moving your grip and losing any ability to fire the weapon). While dodging attacks is certainly possible, its not easy and if you have no way of defending yourself your foe will be able to throw themselves at you. In olden days, archers generally carried at least a short sword of some sort so that when the enemy got close they could throw down their bow and have some sort of effective method of continuing to fight. An exception is the mongolian archers who, since they were riding on horseback were able to keep out of range of enemy attacks in most situations.
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No, its not smart to use a bow in melee combat. In combat you should use magic, a sword or an axe. But the ranged weapons are very usefull if you want to schoot a wild animal which is a long distance away.
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You could implement the option that the character selects where they want the hit to go and have penatlies/advantages...
e.g. character chooses to hit
(NB: CTH = Chance To Hit)
Torso: Norm. Dmg, Norm CTH
Legs: Lower Dmg, Slows Character, Higher CTH
Arms: Lower Dmg, Degraded Enemy CTH, Higher CTH
Head: High Dmg, Extreme CTH
These are just examples of what you could do.
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what do you mean extreme chance to hit? Do you mean its the easiest to hit the head and the hardest to hit the torso?
I dont think so, I think you should say it more clear but we get the point. :D
The explaining is a bit clearer and ive added a few ideas :D
eg. Character chooses to hit:
(NB: CTH = Chance to Hit)
Torso: Average Damage, High CTH
Legs: Less Damage, Slows Enemy down (or chance to immobilise?), low CTH
Arms: Less Damage, Enemy has Less CTH you, low CTH
Head: High Damage, less time for them to react(maybe worse AI), Very Low CTH
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Yes you wrote it better...even i understand it now
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It\'s true that you can\'t use a bow effectively in melee combat (unless you have ub3r l33t skilz) but you have to remember that melee combat DOES NOT mean combat in general.
Most magic isn\'t used for melee combat either - magic and bows are ranged weapons and are therefore meant for ranged combat. The reason why archers and mages have higher attack powers is because they have to avoid melee combat (unless they\'ve trained to handle themselves otherwise as with the short sword example.)
Most (all?) of the examples here have been of one on one fights but archers and mages are most useful against a group and are safest when they are in one themselves.
Now I realize that most of this has been gone over but I just thought I\'d mention it because we\'re pointing out all the weakness of ranged weapons w/o giving them credit for there strengths. Yes using a bow versus a sword in close ranged melee combat is a bad idea, but what are you going to do with a sword when you\'re 200m away and a yeoman\'s aiming his long bow at you? Will he hit you? Probably not, but if your entire guild is trying to raid his guild house then somebody\'s not going home happy. The same thing with mages - what\'s an axe going to do versus a mage throwing fireballs from the top of a tower?
The question is not, \"Which weapon is most effective?\" but, \"When is each weapon most effective?\"
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my thoughts on bows
they should be useful. if it takes 20 arrows which all hit to bring down a lvl 1 mob, well then i might as well use a toothpick. bows should have a long as hell range, as far as you can see. in medievil times, most bows were compairable to a 100 pound pull. the arrows also typically went through most varriants of chain armor. also i think one should beable to use bows at close range only if they are not engaged. i do not want to have to move 40 yards back to engage a guy who is attacking my friend 5 feet away. Most importantally i think, one should beable to change weapons easily and beable to change weapons. i\'d like to use a variety of weapons, maybe not all of them but i\'d like to beable to use a bow and a dagger (not at the same time of course)
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I think for every missile weapon, you need to equique a quiver(?word, i mean a missle sheath). This quiver should have a limited capacity and to refill it takes time. You can only fire, if you have a missile in your quiver.
For example for arrows there are 20, 40, 60 arrow quivers. The higher the capacity, the higher the requirements/mali.
You should be able to recollect most shoot missles from the ground/target.
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Just to toss a small but maybe interesting point in, that very few games or films make use of.
You don\'t run around with your bow/crossbow strung constantly. If you do, you end up with a bit of bent wood and some expensive limp string, especially if you\'re bounding through humid or damp places, or extremes of heat.
In order to avoid constantly replacing weapons, archers would leave their bows unstrung until they need them. This, combined with their general uselessness in melee, means that mages, fighters and archers occupy distinct and useful positions if mages can throw out a spell quickly. Mages are faster, but archers aren\'t limited by mana (only arrows, which should be cheap), and both are pretty useless when something is eating their face.
Also means that throw weapons become attractive again, despite their generally lower damage.
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excellentpoints snut. It takes me a good 15 seconds to get my bow off my back, bent, and strung. A skilled archer(not me) could probably perform the same feat in about 7 seconds. 7 seconds may not seem like a lot,but when there is a large, bad smelling, furry thing charging you, it\'s a long time.
An archer should operate as an archer, not as warrior witha different weapon. eg, he should shoot at his target until it gets close, then either run away, or pull out a sword. Well, a single archer shouldn\'t be shooting at anything he can\'t kill before it gets to him.
The archer is a SUPPORT fighter, his purpose is to deal additional damage without getting chewed on. Like a mage, he is fragile, and easily digested, and like a mage, he should be able to deal more damage than a fighter, as long as he has the advantage of range.
There\'s my ramble,
Jessyn
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personnally my favorite ranged weapons are crossbow that we are able to use with only one hand (the other is for the shield... off course!)
Not powerful... but very useful against slow but powerful creatures... ;-) EH !!! let me them they are mine !
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The Battle Mage and Battle Archer(lol) are adept at 1 on one or 1 on many combat. The mage, who can hit you hit you from range, then if so go into melee and cast magic, parry and slash. I beleve no mage would only be trained in standing there and just casting spells. The Archer, able to shoot screaming arrows into the enemy, then use his agility in CCB. He can also \"advance to the rear\" do increase shooting time.
There is no point in training in these arts, if you can use them once, then get your but kicked in combat.
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:D I agree - in systems which allow it (annoyingly few) I like playing agile mages with a few dirty close combat tricks up their sleeves. That\'s mainly because I like lone adventuring as well as trailing after big guys in chainmail, and also because it\'s nice to be able to back up my magic with a bit of eye-poking.
Flipside, the \'full support\' archer or mage usually has a place. Purists or specialists and so forth, the less combat focused or the group-combat-centric... specialist healers, for instance, rarely seem to want for lack of a group willing to adventure with them. :)
Besides, there\'s always the wizards battlecry: \"Expiditious Retreeeeeat!\"
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Originally posted by fken
personnally my favorite ranged weapons are crossbow that we are able to use with only one hand (the other is for the shield... off course!)
lol, you get one shot then...
And I wouldnt say an archer deals mor damage than a melee fighter with one shot/blow.
This whole discussion comes from standard rpg setting that every class should be able to do 1on1 PvP. This is stupid I think.
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eh ? in the boring real life, what are doing ? are you a bow user ? and if you aren\'t, wont you be able to use a bow if you take one in hand ?
off course there is a difference between the way to use the bow... (and the bow we could use too) but it doenst mean we wont be able to us a bow even if we are melee fighter...
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See, my idea system of archery is: First... lets say your skill is at one. You have a radius of (first person)
_____________
[______________]
[____[XXXXXX]___]
[____[XXXXXX]___] <-- That much to hit...
[____[XXXXXX]___]
[____[XXXXXX]___]
[______________]
(outside box being whole screen, the area in which your arrow will go)
As your skill gets better that inside point shortens and gets smaller., also theres a (possible if not to hard) Wind factor involved, as well as a angle factor .... like a curve in your shot, of course up close the arrows will fly strait, but at a distance, in which the point of archery is... would be curved.... Furthermore... there should be a chance where the arrow doesnt even shoot.... I myself have tried archery and im God awful at it!... at a low skill level... it should have a chance to not shoot all together, rather the arrow just falls to the ground... or goes somwhere obscene... or goes for a short distance but fails....... Perhapse a power bar for power... and all this other crap.... Thatd be a good archery system in my oppinion.
OH COMEONE! SOMONE RESPOND AND TELL ME IF THIS IS A GOOD IDEA OR NOT!!
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It?s Crap... complete and utter crap :P
Joken! :D
I agree that we shouldn?t have a \"simple\" archery system, but neither should we have a complex one that adds nothing to the game play. You roll to hit, what (for example, my educated guess :D ) is taken into account is the distance, your bow and your archery skill, there would be modifiers to hit according to the target size also. Its Random because wind, missing etc come into effect, so the higher skill etc makes gives it more chance of hitting. Then depending on modifiers etc, you have a damage roll, this Random number takes into effect the damage if you hit his left thumbnail or his pupil. If you get a same damage roll as there hp, then its instant kill, a challenging monster, with average HP will be able to take more and more arrows before it snuffs it. A MASSIVE MIND SUCKING OGRE on the other hand, will watch you shoot 20 arrows into its face, arm, gut, left thumbnail, laugh and sit on you.
Also, to address a min range... NO, i have done a bit of archery, and being a smart lemur, i fail to see how the arrow will \"speed up\" once it has left the string. The reason it travels \"fast\" is because the string pushed it there, nothing else. No min range :D
You get the picture...
\"Bring out yaw dead!\"
Oh! I almost forgot, there will be NO, i repeat NO, FPS\'ness in PS, (/me hopes the dev\'s don\'t get bored and decide to make me sound like a twat)
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So pretty much your saying that my idea is good... without the first person idea... and the skill involved? makeing it just a hack and slash? Well- tahts just stupid. so tehr noobelf!1!!
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What???
Its Called A RPG!
Roleth Playingeth Gameth!
The Skill is that you have got experence in your charictor and they can shoot better!
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Hence the name \"Hack and slash\" ---> Im sure nobody wants this to be a hack and slash ----> Thus we make it SLIGHTLY more challenging. Itd be fun!