Combat

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Thormac

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Although you have said that there won't be any more features added to the game I will say a few things about the combat. Just in case.

Problem:

When wielding a faster weapon than his opponent player can just click the mouse button like crazy and win every time. Opponent has little or no chance to return a single blow.



Possible resolutions:

Depending on the shield or weapon skill (since there is no separate parry skill) defender could make the attacker loose his rythm/balance (or whatever) with a succesfull parry. In game terms attacker would suffer a reduced 'speed rating' to his next attack. What I mean is that his next swing would start little later. The severity of this penalty would depend on the weapon skill of the defender as I stated. For example if player's blow was parried by an experienced fighter his next attack would start lets say 0.5-1 seconds later than usual. If AI who parried was inexperienced the penalty would be smaller. This addition would give the defender some chance to strike too.

"Trainer" who gives the combat tutorial says that clicking the left mouse button franticly is useless. Clicking the left mb should cancel the current attack and start a new one. Maybe this is not implemented yet? I can imagine that some people would get a bit frustrated and confused about this feature. At first anyway.

Maybe player would have to keep left mb pushed for a certain time to get the full damage. When earlyer attack was finished player would push and keep the left mouse pressed only for about 0.5-1 seconds to get the full force.. This time should preferably be exactly the same time that the "raising the weapon to hit" animation takes. Is there this kind of system already? Trying to hit as fast as possible (by clicking) should only produce minimal damage and therefore should only be used on poorly armored opponents. These "click-click-click" attacks would be too weak to penetrate heavyer armor.
This would be a fine way to mix player skill and character stats. So the optimal time to push left mb would be exactly the same (or just a tiny bit longer) time "weapon raising/reaching back" animation takes. If player would anticipate and release mousebutton too early he should do less damage as a penalty. Again, maybe this kind of system already exists.




Additional suggestions:

AI using spear (or 2h weapon) should not be able to attack if player moves right on their skin because the weapon is so long. In these cases it would be good if AI (and player) could have somekind of push action to get too friendly opponent off their skin. Maybe when combatants were right next to eachother parry action would be push instead. Or why not both? F or middle mouse button would do also. Maybe shield could be used to ram opponent further and then fighter could strike with a right hand weapon immediately (like roman legionares did?). Opponent who was pushed back would receive the beforementioned penalty and so couldn't attack immediately. This would bring little variety to the combat and also help partially solve the "problem" above. I don't think you neccessary have to do any animations for this. Fighter who was pushed could just make few fast steps backwards. Pusher's STR and target's AGI could be the factors how far one is pushed



About combat difficulty:

Currently the normal difficulty setting is too easy because of abowementioned "problem". When creating harder settings please don't increase enemy hitpoints/armor or lower the damage player is doing. Maybe you could make AI and player hit faster instead (that is if you can't work with the suggestions I made). I don't think I have killed any AI with single blow yet. If enemies would be even more "durable" it would kill the feeling totally.




Just so that this post wouldn't be only critisism I will say this; Warrider is something I have wished for a long time. Great job. I never thought I would play a game this much which doesn't have invert mouse.


PS. I still want that invert a.s.a.p :grin:
 
Thormac said:
Although you have said that there won't be any more features added to the game I will say a few things about the combat. Just in case.
By no more features, I meant there won't be magic or pickpocketing. I am always willing to improve combat. Hence your suggestions are most welcome. :smile:

Problem:

When wielding a faster weapon than his opponent player can just click the mouse button like crazy and win every time. Opponent has little or no chance to return a single blow.
Right. That's a major problem. I was planning to attack that sometime.


Possible resolutions:
Depending on the shield or weapon skill (since there is no separate parry skill) defender could make the attacker loose his rythm/balance (or whatever) with a succesfull parry.
Yes. I may try to do that.

"Trainer" who gives the combat tutorial says that clicking the left mouse button franticly is useless. Clicking the left mb should cancel the current attack and start a new one. Maybe this is not implemented yet? I can imagine that some people would get a bit frustrated and confused about this feature. At first anyway.
It was implemented but I removed it because of the reason you mentioned. Perhaps I could make it optional.

Maybe player would have to keep left mb pushed for a certain time to get the full damage. When earlyer attack was finished player would push and keep the left mouse pressed only for about 0.5-1 seconds to get the full force.. This time should preferably be exactly the same time that the "raising the weapon to hit" animation takes. Is there this kind of system already? Trying to hit as fast as possible (by clicking) should only produce minimal damage and therefore should only be used on poorly armored opponents. These "click-click-click" attacks would be too weak to penetrate heavyer armor.
As far as I remember, Thief, Morrowind and Ultima underworld had that.
Additional suggestions...
Kicking and pushing opponents would be cool. I could try doing those if I have the time.

Currently the normal difficulty setting is too easy because of abowementioned "problem". When creating harder settings please don't increase enemy hitpoints/armor or lower the damage player is doing. Maybe you could make AI and player hit faster instead (that is if you can't work with the suggestions I made). I don't think I have killed any AI with single blow yet. If enemies would be even more "durable" it would kill the feeling totally.
Makes sense. I'll try to fix that problem before doing anything rash. :smile:

I never thought I would play a game this much which doesn't have invert mouse.
:lol: That is one of the nicest things said about Warrider. Thanks a lot.

PS. I still want that invert a.s.a.p :grin:
I just added it. You'll need to wait for the next beta release though. :smile:
 
armagan said:
Although you have said that there won't be any more features added to the game I will say a few things about the combat. Just in case.
By no more features, I meant there won't be magic or pickpocketing. I am always willing to improve combat. Hence your suggestions are most welcome. :smile:

Thats great.


armagan said:
"Trainer" who gives the combat tutorial says that clicking the left mouse button franticly is useless. Clicking the left mb should cancel the current attack and start a new one. Maybe this is not implemented yet? I can imagine that some people would get a bit frustrated and confused about this feature. At first anyway.

It was implemented but I removed it because of the reason you mentioned. Perhaps I could make it optional.

Although I'm all for great amount of options in games this one doesn't seem so good. There must be a better way.


armagan said:
Maybe player would have to keep left mb pushed for a certain time to get the full damage. When earlyer attack was finished player would push and keep the left mouse pressed only for about 0.5-1 seconds to get the full force.. This time should preferably be exactly the same time that the "raising the weapon to hit" animation takes. Is there this kind of system already? Trying to hit as fast as possible (by clicking) should only produce minimal damage and therefore should only be used on poorly armored opponents. These "click-click-click" attacks would be too weak to penetrate heavyer armor.
As far as I remember, Thief, Morrowind and Ultima underworld had that.

I meant if Warrider had that kind of system already, or is it the same how long you push mouse button? If lenght of the mouse push would affect greatly on the damage it would currently give heavily armoured enemies a chance (although I don't know how armor works. Just guessing here). Player would have to make sure he keeps mb pushed long enough to penetrate armor. Would this system be too vague to players? Or would it need more attack animations?


armagan said:
PS. I still want that invert a.s.a.p :grin:
I just added it. You'll need to wait for the next beta release though. :smile:
I don't know how can I.
 
Horse maneuvering and "physics"

Could it be possible to increase acceleration, deceleration, speed and most importantly turning ability of a horse depending on riders ride skill (and perhaps the quality of the horse)?

Riding a horse is very enjoyable and easy, but it seems like they turn a bit like being on a relaxing sunday afternoon ride. Not like in a battle. Don't get me wrong. I'm only talking about small increase here. Nothing unrealistic. There wouldn't have to be huge difference between lowest and highest skill level maneuverabilities. Even tiny advantage on riding maneuverability could yield success in battle. Suberb swordsman on a horse could then be an easyer prey if he was a poor rider. Other way around a peasant with high ride skill could be hard to kill because he would change directions more rapidly and have more speed while on horseback. Player with poor ride skill could have a hard time evading elite riders on the battlefield.

It would also be great if the huge kinetic energy of horses would show more. Currently when ramming onto foot soldiers horse stops like it hit a wall. Could it be done that foot soldiers would be pushed aside, and they could possibly fall down depending on the impact's force and their AGI. Ofcourse AI would then stand up same way when AI's horse is killed and rider is thrown to the ground. Horse's speed (if high enough) should only decrease a bit but not stop completely. Additionally poor quality horses could slow down more than warhorses when steered to run over people. Some poor horses could sometimes even refuse to hit anyone.

Didn't medieval warhorses kick? Player could make his horse do front or back kicks if he has a good enough warhorse and a high enough ride skill. A hefty kick could throw enemy footman flying to the ground. This could probably use the same animation as AI pushed by horse charge. Could this be possible?
 
Thormac said:
Horse maneuvering and "physics"

Could it be possible to increase acceleration, deceleration, speed and most importantly turning ability of a horse depending on riders ride skill (and perhaps the quality of the horse)?
Horses already have different maneuver and speed ratings. Maybe I should make the differences more pronounced.

It would also be great if the huge kinetic energy of horses would show more.
Makes sense. I'll think about it.

Didn't medieval warhorses kick? Player could make his horse do front or back kicks if he has a good enough warhorse and a high enough ride skill. A hefty kick could throw enemy footman flying to the ground. This could probably use the same animation as AI pushed by horse charge. Could this be possible?
Supposedly they were trained to kick and bite. Maybe I can add those to Warrider 2. :smile:
 
AI's maneuvering in battle:

AI which is going after player seems to go straight towards him. With a horse player can avoid enemy (even riders) forever and with many arrows he can kill safely many of them. Can AI be tuned so that it could occasionally cut corners and head to the point player was going to. So for example if player made 90 degrees turn AI followin him would make like 30 degrees turn right away.

So basically AI would try to run to a point which is at certain distance from player to the direction player is going.

Distance could be something like this:

[0 to 0.5 (random)] X [distance between player and AI]

random multiplier 0 would obviously mean that AI was running straight towards player. 0.5 would mean that AI was really trying to block players flanking attempt.

It would be good though if individual AI's movement could be consistent for a certain time. So that AI won't first run directly at player and at the next second trying to cut him off and so forth. I don't know how notable this would be though. Some dumb AI's could use multipliers between 0-0.2 and smart ones could use near 0.5 multipliers. They could spread a bit with this variety. On the otherhand it would be also good if more sophisticated enemy footsoldiers could stick closer together and try to cut player off more efficiently (all use ~0.5 multi). If player would stay away some AIs could change to missile weapons (I think they currently do this pretty well) and still get protected by other close friends. If player was moving faster than AI (foot vs. horse) AI should obviously cut more, but ...well. Bottom line; Some AI blocking maneuvers would be a valuable addition.

I just tried to make a point. I get it that actually coding something like this could be tricky. What do you think?


P.S. I went little overboard with that warhorse kicking thing. I did a quick research and found no mention of controlled kicking. Maybe it didn't happen or was rare at most. Btw horses won't really run into tight and deep formation of footmen but can hit scattered men if forced.
 
it would be cool to add a sprint action to the footman. They have same speed and if one walks away it is impossible to catch him. Sprintcharge would be a good option in larger battles, you target an enemy , run towards him, and hit him.
Maybe when you hold the mouse button the speed of the player could be increased, you run but you cant block an incoming attack if any comes.( kýlýcý gerdiðimizde koþabilse ve ne kadar hýzlanýrsak vuruþumuza eklense )

Also it can be nice to add indoor missions, like entering a cave you leave your inventory and horse outside the cave. ( but there would be camera problems in indoor games i suppose.)
 
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