[Suggestion] Melee Combat Movement Revamp and Weapon & Swing Sweet Spots

Here’s some of my thoughts on fine tuning combat, relating to the dynamics of movement.

Currently, it seems like there’s a lot of unrealistic running in circles and awkward maneuvering to hit other players.  These ideas are designed to encourage a more realistic approach to melee combat, and improve the depth of game play.

One of the issues stems from how players can turn while attacking.  I think a restriction on how much players can turn while attacking will encourage players to attack while they face their opponents, instead of trying to catch them with unrealistic swinging and moving.

To that end, I propose that players can turn no more than 55 degrees while attacking.  Some clarification; I do not count priming or chambering a melee weapon as attacking; rather it is only once the player releases the mouse button and the swing begins that the turn restriction would take effect.  This restriction is near to a realistic representation of how much a person could change their attack direction in mid-swing.  There'd be no turn restriction when defending (beyond the normal movement restriction).

I believe this would help game play immensely.  Right now, with a character standing still, you can attack with a one handed weapon and change the attack direction by over 90 degrees.  While moving forward (simply holding down ‘W’ and moving the mouse), you can change it by nearly 180 degrees.  (These are values estimated after some quick experimentation online.)  The most important part of this would be to reduce the amount you can spin while moving forward.  Being able to do an about-face while running forward and slashing is simply not realistic and detracts from game play.

It would mean you would have to be facing, at least somewhat, the person you were trying to hit.  So we’d have less running and circling and slashing.  Players would have to be more aware of their footing, which would add to the depth of game play.

Secondly, the current battlefield features players always running around.  But in real life, stable footing from a stationary stance helps when swinging a weapon or just one’s fists.  But no one bothers to pause to attack in the game because it provides no advantage.

Therefore, I propose a ‘stable footing’ bonus; small speed and damage bonuses added to a swing when the attacker starts the forward swing (not when they chamber/prime the swing, but when they release the mouse button) when they aren’t pressing any movement keys (WASD).  They wouldn’t have to stand still for long; only 250ms (1/4 of a second) to get the bonus. 

So a person could be running around, press the mouse button to prime an attack, stop moving, and a quarter of a second later release the mouse button to get the ‘stable footing’ bonus.  They could press movement keys again as soon as they let go of the mouse button, during the swing, and still receive the bonus.  This would encourage less constant circling by allowing more thoughtful players to take advantage of the tactical depth this provides.

I think increasing the overall speed of all melee weapons would also help, by changing the relative difference between weapon speed and melee speed.  We have a lot of circling because movement is fast compared to weapon speed.  Realistically, I think you’d be able to swing a weapon faster than it takes now in game.  I think all the pauses in animation between the backswing to get a weapon in position and the forward attacking swing should be removed.  If weapon speed was increased relative to movement speed players would be less likely to run and circle because they’d be more likely to get hit while doing so.

On weapon mesh sweet spots.  I think this is a good idea, and I included several diagrams below to represent differing damage values based on where a weapon impacts the target.  In these diagrams, red indicates where 100% damage is done, and yellow indicates where a minimum of damage is done; white indicates no damage at all.  These are, of course, just suggestions for such a system.

Another thing that would be helpful is weapon swing sweet spots; weapons would do more damage during certain parts of the swing.  Hitting someone with the tail end of the swing animation would do significantly reduced damaged compared to hitting them in the middle of the swing.  Hitting them with the very beginning of the swing would generate no damage.  Below, you can see a diagram that shows a potential relative damage layout.  Again, red means full damage, yellow means minimal damage, and white means no damage.

This would improve game play and realism as well.  Players would have to take care to aim more with their swings.  They couldn’t circle and slash while counting on any part of their swing to do a lot of damage.

I think these changes would do several very good things for the game.  It would improve game play, by offering another layer of tactical depth to fighting, and forcing players to take into consideration more factors when fighting.  Those who did so would fare better.  There’d be less spamming, because the effectiveness would be greatly reduced.  It would also improve realism, because players would be encouraged to fight in a more realistic manner.

Please don't hesitate to respond with questions or criticisms.

Thanks,
CR

Beautiful diagrams I agree 100% with everything.  Although you might be more merciful to the big two-handed swords by never letting them do 0 damage along the blade.  This would differentiate them from axes and polearms a bit.  Of course if you hit near the hilt you would certainly be doing very low yellow damage.

I love your diagram of weapon swing arc.  Currently everyone tries to hit their opponent at the very beginning of the swing arc while their opponent is directly to their side. In your diagram this would do no more than interrupt the opponent as the weapon has gained 0 speed at this point in the spin arc.  People should be trying to hit where your diagram shows maximum damage is(which in your diagram starts directly in front of the sword arm).

Thanks for the response.  Stopping the practice of swing around and trying to hit your opponent with the tip of your sword at the beginning of your swing is one goal.

Of course, the diagrams are just potential results.  So the white zone on 2 handed swords could be reduced or done away with, though I think at least a little white zone would be appropriate, since such long blades weren't often sharpened so close to the hilt (IIRC).

CR

Awesome post!!!

Taken further so that an axe head is the damaging part while the pole itself does minor damage.Same with glaive etc.

I like these ideas you've presented, some vary from interesting to outright needed.

Movement restriction on attack is good, maybe it would need to be a little more lenient on stabbing/overhead attacks. Would need testing.

A stable footing bonus is interesting. I could definitely see people using this in ambushes around corners and such. Otherwise though, I would see this mostly being used by stabbing weapons, which are already pretty powerful.

Weapon sweet spots is definitely something that has been kicked around and needs to happen so that everyone currently running around with long axes would need to use more intelligent positioning.

The only one I don't care for is . . .

I think increasing the overall speed of all melee weapons would also help, by changing the relative difference between weapon speed and melee speed.  We have a lot of circling because movement is fast compared to weapon speed.  Realistically, I think you’d be able to swing a weapon faster than it takes now in game.  I think all the pauses in animation between the backswing to get a weapon in position and the forward attacking swing should be removed.  If weapon speed was increased relative to movement speed players would be less likely to run and circle because they’d be more likely to get hit while doing so.

Click to expand...

This pause is needed in the preparation of a swing in order to give players a chance to manually block the attack. The lack of sufficient warning is the current problem with 1 hand sword stabs. Apply that to everything and you can see the nightmare it would become. Without that bit of forewarning, everyone would be going back to nothing but shield combat.

The only other nitpick I have is in regards to swing arcs. They're already implemented in terms of damage based on how far into a swing a weapon is. You can test this out with an overhead warhammer swing. A weak swing won't crush through a block as often as one that has more momentum behind it. The real underlying problem behind it currently is that weapons do a tremendous amount of damage right from the beginning of a swing, such that a glaive will look like it's standing still in a right-left swing, then move an inch and instantly kill someone. The damage needs to be much more gradually incremented and less based off of the movement of a player, as you've suggested fixing.

Overall, though, it's a lovely post. Thanks for taking the time.

I think I agree 100% with Harn. Besides the melee weapon speed thing, I think everything in your post should make it in-game.

Also, the bonus for not moving while attacking would be more than just for ambushes and thrusting weapons. You could choose to attack while moving and do less power but harder to counter attack. It's a trade-off, a strategical decision. Do I want to finish this guy off with a good stroke, or should I be more careful with my attack and move to be a harder target. Currently, moving gives you a speed bonus as well as making you harder to counter, but every good martial artist knows that a stable base gives you a more stable, powerful attack. This will also encourage more interesting footwork that would have more to do with positioning rather than flying around in a WWII fighter plane (if you get my meaning ).

I would love to test this stuff out.

Really good OP and overall discussion in the thread and I really like these ideas which have been suggested in some context before, atleast the ideas are. Providing the images backed by the explanation helps the suggestion a lot.

I'm agree with this but it would be great to see this suggestion come true and test it in-game to see if it actually works in Warband as right now we are so used to the system we have now. Nevertheless, the suggestion seems to have a lot more positive sides in it than negative.

Crazed Rabbit said:

...
Therefore, I propose a ‘stable footing’ bonus; small speed and damage bonuses added to a swing when the attacker starts the forward swing (not when they chamber/prime the swing, but when they release the mouse button) when they aren’t pressing any movement keys (WASD).  They wouldn’t have to stand still for long; only 250ms (1/4 of a second) to get the bonus. 

So a person could be running around, press the mouse button to prime an attack, stop moving, and a quarter of a second later release the mouse button to get the ‘stable footing’ bonus.  They could press movement keys again as soon as they let go of the mouse button, during the swing, and still receive the bonus.  This would encourage less constant circling by allowing more thoughtful players to take advantage of the tactical depth this provides.
...
On weapon mesh sweet spots.  I think this is a good idea, and I included several diagrams below to represent differing damage values based on where a weapon impacts the target.  In these diagrams, red indicates where 100% damage is done, and yellow indicates where a minimum of damage is done; white indicates no damage at all.  These are, of course, just suggestions for such a system.
...
Another thing that would be helpful is weapon swing sweet spots; weapons would do more damage during certain parts of the swing.  Hitting someone with the tail end of the swing animation would do significantly reduced damaged compared to hitting them in the middle of the swing.  Hitting them with the very beginning of the swing would generate no damage.  Below, you can see a diagram that shows a potential relative damage layout.  Again, red means full damage, yellow means minimal damage, and white means no damage.
...

Click to expand...

The stable footing bonus is a good idea. It can be even simpler than your suggestion - since the system keeps track of your speed at any given moment is can just use you current speed at the time of release. I think it should affect swing speed mostly otherwise it takes the sting out of the speed bonus to damage of a charge.

On the mesh sweet spots I disagree. Axes may have a shorter blade but they are pole weapons and their reach can be adjusted very quickly and efficiently. They do not have constant range attack. This is too complicated for the game engine, but a real axeman will not strike with the pole. He will shorten the grip or bend his elbow to strike closer. The idea of getting behind the tip of a spear/axe is realistic only for a split second, right after countering an attack. On the recovery the grip will be shortened and you will face the tip again even if you closed the distance - or will be attacked with the butt end. The game engine cannot handle that.

On the swing angle sweet spots that is a good idea that has been proposed before. I think it is already implemented in some what, but not pronounced enough to notice.

Sure why not.


Though I don't quite understand why your swing power gets lower as you get nearer the end of your swing.  The follow-through will contain all the momentum past where you currently have the red spot and deceleration of the attack is much quicker than implied there.  The red area should be larger at the end of the swing IMO and then drop off rapidly.

On the mesh sweet spots I disagree. Axes may have a shorter blade but they are pole weapons and their reach can be adjusted very quickly and efficiently. They do not have constant range attack. This is too complicated for the game engine, but a real axeman will not strike with the pole. He will shorten the grip or bend his elbow to strike closer. The idea of getting behind the tip of a spear/axe is realistic only for a split second, right after countering an attack. On the recovery the grip will be shortened and you will face the tip again even if you closed the distance - or will be attacked with the butt end. The game engine cannot handle that.

Click to expand...

We don't really know how well the weapon sweet spot system would work unless we try it out. You present some ok points, but none of them are any reason that we shouldn't go ahead and test it out.

(I also don't think you get the point of it. The point is for shorter/smaller weapons to have an advantage in short range, but longer weapons to have an advantage in long range.)

(In response to the polearm thing. Certainly a spearman can change his grip to fight close-range, but will it be fast enough to deal with the sword attack undoubtedly headed towards his head? Even with an adjusted grip, a shorter/smaller weapon will still have an advantage)

I agree with weapons and swings sweet spots. Would add much depth.

Well, it's not original, but your post is really well written and I like the diagrams =D . And still WE NEED THIS SYSTEM.

Aye,I like the idea.

Crazed Rabbit said:

Thanks for the response.  Stopping the practice of swing around and trying to hit your opponent with the tip of your sword at the beginning of your swing is one goal.

Of course, the diagrams are just potential results.  So the white zone on 2 handed swords could be reduced or done away with, though I think at least a little white zone would be appropriate, since such long blades weren't often sharpened so close to the hilt (IIRC).

CR

Click to expand...

Furthermore, if you hug an opponent using a large weapon, they are unlikely to even be able to swing their weapon at all, all they could do is try to push you away. This should be where pushing with weapon or shield and or kicking would come it to try to create some distance to be able to use the weapon.

Yellonet said:

Crazed Rabbit said:

Thanks for the response.  Stopping the practice of swing around and trying to hit your opponent with the tip of your sword at the beginning of your swing is one goal.

Of course, the diagrams are just potential results.  So the white zone on 2 handed swords could be reduced or done away with, though I think at least a little white zone would be appropriate, since such long blades weren't often sharpened so close to the hilt (IIRC).

CR

Click to expand...

Furthermore, if you hug an opponent using a large weapon, they are unlikely to even be able to swing their weapon at all, all they could do is try to push you away. This should be where pushing with weapon or shield and or kicking would come it to try to create some distance to be able to use the weapon.

Click to expand...

Of course, a bigger weapon can still be used in grappling applications. Of course some weapons are just too big (pike ehem), but weapons like longswords are especially effective at grappling applications due to the leverage gained from the longer hilt and blade. But perhaps that is besides the point...

We still should test the OP suggestions.

The whole thing sounds great.

Thanks for the responses; I'm glad most of it is positive.

SteveO said:

Sure why not.
Though I don't quite understand why your swing power gets lower as you get nearer the end of your swing.  The follow-through will contain all the momentum past where you currently have the red spot and deceleration of the attack is much quicker than implied there.  The red area should be larger at the end of the swing IMO and then drop off rapidly.

Click to expand...

The reason is straightforward; if you want to stop the weapon, as you do at the end of your swing, you're going to have to slow it down.  Slowing it down means less damage, of course.

This pause is needed in the preparation of a swing in order to give players a chance to manually block the attack. The lack of sufficient warning is the current problem with 1 hand sword stabs. Apply that to everything and you can see the nightmare it would become. Without that bit of forewarning, everyone would be going back to nothing but shield combat.

Click to expand...

That's a good point.  I am interested in seeing the effect a shortening of the pause would have, though.

On the mesh sweet spots I disagree. Axes may have a shorter blade but they are pole weapons and their reach can be adjusted very quickly and efficiently. They do not have constant range attack. This is too complicated for the game engine, but a real axeman will not strike with the pole. He will shorten the grip or bend his elbow to strike closer. The idea of getting behind the tip of a spear/axe is realistic only for a split second, right after countering an attack. On the recovery the grip will be shortened and you will face the tip again even if you closed the distance - or will be attacked with the butt end. The game engine cannot handle that.

Click to expand...

That's something to consider.  But there is the chance for players to adjust the point where they strike already by moving with the WASD keys.  Right now no one really pays attention to that though, since there's no penalty for hitting people with the pole.  Also, I'd imagine that even for a trained axe fighter, it's hard to adjust the strike point of the axe head against a moving target in mid-swing.

I think testing the idea would be good, because I think it would improve game play.  It could always be refined, like extending the 'red zone' a bit, through experimentation.

One thing I noticed about 1 handed sword animations; when swinging from right to left, the slash is more horizontal than the left to right slash.  I think having the right to left slash mirror the left to right one, that is to be more diagonal, would be better.  It would mean the animation for the hand could be adjusted to look better (the hand would be held in line with the arm, not bent back as it is now).  And since the swinging animation wouldn't extend so far to the side, we'd have less people wheeling about trying to hit people to their side.

CR

Crazed Rabbit said:

...
That's something to consider.  But there is the chance for players to adjust the point where they strike already by moving with the WASD keys.  Right now no one really pays attention to that though, since there's no penalty for hitting people with the pole.  Also, I'd imagine that even for a trained axe fighter, it's hard to adjust the strike point of the axe head against a moving target in mid-swing.

I think testing the idea would be good, because I think it would improve game play.  It could always be refined, like extending the 'red zone' a bit, through experimentation.

Click to expand...

It is working this way in 1.011, regarding range. If I remember correctly, this is a simple function of the difference between the "reach" of the weapon and the actual distance. The result was that spears and some pole weapons became useless once the AI reached you and activated the "leg-humping" protocol. Closing the distance was extremely easy since there was no "push back" and the player gets effectively one strike at optimal range and a lot of 0 damage hits from them on. Thrusts we totally nullified since the bend forward animation only made the negative distance difference even worse. The only option in that case is to swing wildly with the spear hoping to get a knock down, or to outrun the opponent and never stop to exchange blows.

Provided that in Warband the back-paddling speed is higher and we have a kick to push back a little, the problem is not as sever, but it may still mean that all you have to do in order to charge a spear/pike user is to hold "block down", or even easier "raise shield" and charge. The long weapon user has no athletics advantage like the player vs. AI in 1.011. Against a long axe/glaive you only have to block once when closing the distance. It encourages HI leg humping.

In theory, the "x" function can be used to switch between two pole weapons. These could be the exact same weapon meshes with a different axis-origin position that changes the grip point and a different "reach" parameter in the attributes. It can then allow some user controlled grip change, to allow fighting at close range. I am not sure that this is an optimal solution though.

Amazing, expecially the last diagram.

Many good ideas.