So not only you want to revamp all the hitbox system but also the aiming AI for archers, and also rely on it to work properly.
Actually I was referring to player archers, no to AIs.
In the case of AI there are two approaches:
-from a distance (therefore beyond a given distance that will be chosen by the developer): they just need to aim at the entire enemy model. It will be luck to decide whether the combination of the arrow's trajectory to the path chosen by the target will result in an arrow stuck in an uncovered hurtbox or in a protected one.
- up close: the AI must target one of the discovered hurtboxes. The approach is no different than how the AI chooses to attack a target, of course it has to do so by choosing from multiple hurtboxes.
And you want to overhaul the movement system to take into account ouch-rain stuck into targets
no, there is already the mechanics in play, but apparently no one notices it and it is not exploited at all times.
It is called ENCUMBRANCE.
You can see this in your inventory and it varies when you equip or unequip pieces of armor.
I simply suggest using it more and specifically I have already written a thread on how to use it to balance the relationship between archers and foot units with shields.
Let's say that the various threads that I write are intertwined with each other and each of them solves one or more aspects that I consider problematic in the game, with the balance, the depth of gameplay and the realism in the gameplay at the center.
[POLL] SHIELD + STUCKED PROJECTILE = ENCUMBRANCE
And you want to overhaul the movement system
I have already suggested doing this to greatly increase the player's degrees of freedom without losing realism and without risking having people jumping everywhere, but not in relation to this thread.
The suggestion of expanding movement skills was just to get more combat skills (squatting, step-dodge, high jump (the one in the game) and low jump, then crawl)) .
I could have included the ability to cling and climb edges (can be useful in some cases) and the ability to climb ladders and ropes.
You will say: why these things? what are they for?
In singleplayer there is the skill roguery which practically does not reflect what it would like to suggest.
Do you want to be a killer of kings while you're at war? Go into enemy territory, to the edges of the walls, see if the guards are watching you or not, throw the rope with the hook, climb the walls, go to the castle, infiltrate somewhere by crawling into some hole or crouching down to pass somewhere. window and, if no one has discovered you, you come to the lord.
In short: without the above mechanics, many of these approaches are not feasible.
And I'm not even the type to use these approaches, so I don't suggest them for myself, but unlike many others, I make suggestions for having a game that is as close to expectations as possible.
ADD NEW MOVEMENT MECHANICS(dodge/dash,low jump/jump,fast crouch/crouch & combinations)
So the AI needs a much more sophisticated approach for attacking to take into account hitting the less armored parts of their opponents, while in the middle of a jiggly moshpit when two lines of infantry collide
It depends on the type of situation, but generally yes.
In the case of infantry lines, the approach is that of the lunge (stab).
They simply need to aim at one of the target's hurtboxes in front of them. The lunge is an attack that allows both the player and the AI to accurately target everything in front (head, shoulders, armpits, arms, torso, legs and even the feet).
More complicated would be in the case of cuts of the horizontal, vertical or diagonal type.
But in these cases I don't think we need to act very differently than what is already done now.
If I had to consider what more needs to be done, in the case of the horizontal and vertical ones, it is to act on the rotation axis to ensure that the trajectory of the weapon and therefore its hitbox meets that of the target's hitbox.
But I think these factors are already taken into account by the game as it is now, otherwise the AI might not have the combat "tactic" it has now.
So your entire rework is just "be more accurate to deal damage, be less accurate and deal less damage". This works, in theory, fine for the player in combat with less soldiers. But are you aware that the AI can't land stabbing attacks to save their own lives, and in the front lines attacks can be interrupted by hitting other troops? You really want them to be, or believe they can be, more accurate in a 300 vs 300 fight that currently is just a mess? Except for blunt of course, that you propose to be strong regardless of aiming at strong points, which means stones would still be as strong as they are now and maces will dominate since the AI can't aim properly
If they suck at being accurate, which is very likely to happen given the jiggly moshpits that infantry fights are, or with cavalry knocking everyone around, or archers that prefer to aim at cavalry circling around them instead of a mass of infantry approaching, all you're doing is reducing the damage everyone will do, except for the lucky few hits that end up hitting a good target.
Let's say that the principle is the one you explained but the results you draw from it are very pessimistic.
I'm not an optimistic type, but not a pessimist like you XD.
In general it is not a question of "luck", but of "probability".
in a match 300 vs 300, the AIs still have an aim which depends on the difficulty of the game. If the developer wants the AI to have good aim, he can already give it to him.
With archers and hand-to-hand fighters, it was quite noticeable in the first months of early access.
With each patch that came out, the AI skill level related to melee or aiming was adjusted and we went from having snipers to having blinds and from having sword masters to incompetent totals.
So "how good are they at hitting each other" is a controllable variable.
Setting that variable, for a large number of soldiers and lunges performed, how many of them will hit?
Clearly the probability will depend on how much the target is covered by his own armor (and on the type of armor etc ..).
The first few minutes of confrontation between two lines of soldiers will not be too short and will allow the player or the AI (if able) to perform tactical maneuvers with other units.
Fights are currently so fast that you don't have time to do anything tactically relevant.
In general, if seen as 1 vs 1 clashes, there will be a lot of precision, but if you move away and look at the 300 VS 300 from the outside, it is simply US who can no longer grasp that precision and therefore it will seem like the classic clash in where two infantry meet and hit each other hoping to score.
But it is only the effect of the change of perspective.
Which in reality occurs.
Essentially all you did was reduce damage dealt by everyone in a very convoluted way that the AI will rarely, if ever, benefit from, because the AI simply doesn't have the same skill level a player does
AI capability is a developer's choice.
In the "game difficulty" options you can choose between having a fast AI, quick in the execution of attacks and that knows where to inflict them, or a complete incompetent.
I've already written it above, since early access started there have been patches that changed the AI capabilities and challenge difficulty.
I'm talking about the only combat in melee 1 vs 1 or in any case with low numbers.
And if you also want to overhaul the combat AI so that they learn to aim better and make the system work as you intend it to, there's a ton of other things you'll need to fix too, like the AI deciding to aim at circling cavalry, or the jiggly moshpits, or commands like advance/fall back working like ass, and shields soaking way too many hits, etc
I repeat. Not only is AI aiming not a problem, it has gotten a lot worse because it was too good.
If anything, it is the choice of TACTICS that the AI performs that is not good.
To which is added the inability of the player to be able to select a target to aim and order a unit to perform certain actions against that target.
There are problems that must be solved, not passively accepted.
Here is a TW problem.
Creating a game where there should be tactics and having an AI that doesn't know how to execute classic tactics is a serious problem that should be solved.
Players should complain about the lack, not simplify the game down to catch up with an AI that doesn't do what it's supposed to do.
Look, don't get me wrong, like everyone else I want a smarter AI, and it would be really cool to have different skill level of AIs depending on troop tier, and stuff working properly as they should in general. But at this stage of development I doubt they can (or care) to fix any of these things or start implementing new, bigger, more complex systems, given that they've already scrapped lots of much simpler systems that were going to be in the game.
All they have to do is make armor prevent more damage, that's it. They aren't going to re-do all the AIs to work better in a more complex hitbox system, which yes, it'd be fancy and cool and whatever, but would require changing and fixing lots of stuff about combat that they haven't even bothered going at yet. It simply isn't realistic, TW can barely keep a 3 month update going without introducing more bugs and fixing important things, and you want them to implement this huge overhaul? Are we looking at the development of the same game?
And I've been reading the same complaint threads for years.
I see them appear periodically because the problem is not solved.
The problem is not solved because there are no levers to solve it.
we do not have the levers to solve it because we continue to act on a parameter that ALONE is not a lever for solving the problem.
There are no levers because there are no mechanics that ACT AS AN INDEPENDENT LEVERAGE or with a dependence on the others that is CALCULATED AND WANTED.
I am suggesting mechanics (which deepen the gameplay) that they are LEVERS, independent or not.
By independent or non-independent levers I mean those parameters or mechanisms on which you can act to obtain a result without other parameters varying beyond the threshold you set.
For years I have been saying that the armor value alone is not enough to solve the problem, because changing it would create others whose resolution would involve lowering it and returning to the previous problem, circularly.
In order not to do a new job 1 time that would solve several problems, the same operations and their inverse are performed 100 times on a single problem, which not only does not solve itself, but creates others.
In my opinion 2 years have already been lost and the problem (the various problems, this is only 1 of many) has not been solved.
But both the developers and the fan base insist on looking for quick solutions that don't work.