cool suggestion for combat

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corksacker69

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as far as i can tell, the kind of attack animation you do when you attack with your weapon, like a swing or a thrust or an overhead blow with a short sword, is random. what if you could actually choose what kind of attack you wanted, like a short sword has 3 types of attacks, map each of those attack to 3 different buttons, and each attack can be different in terms of damage/attack speed/reach/attack recovery. for example, a swing would be relatively short range, but do decent damage and is pretty fast, while a thrust would have a little longer range but take longer to recover from , while an overhead chop would do massive damage but be slow to pull off and slow to recover from. since not all weapons have all the different kinds of attacks, like a spear cant slice/overhead chop, you
would have to have customized controls for all the different weapons or somthing, i dunno. i just thought it looked cool how you can do all these different types of attacks with a weapon but they're pretty much all the same. seems like a waste
 
actually thats a good idea... for instance when riding around cleaving people in two with my battle axe on my charger....

when preparing the strike... i think its random if it goes to the left side or the right side... which means I often times have to haul back my arm before I charge, since that depends on which side of my horse I hit from.

I have tried it to make sure its not just an animation thing.. it actually does strike only on the one side, try it sometime... swing from the left with a guy on the right of your horse... doesnt hit.

we should at least be able to control that attack
 
Sappo
It's not just the animation thing, that's for sure) I've encountered that the strike is made ONLY when your weapon touches your enemy - for example, you can miss a thrust attack with a lance if you'll aim in the air near your enemy's head. This means that the game engine really calculates collisions - and this is great) There are many opportunities in using this engine feature - for example, this allows to calculate the track of a blow, and this can be used to paint wounds on enemy's texture. Hm... Once again the question of performance stands in the full height - different textures for each fighter... This would need about 10 times more texture memory than it is needed now. But this could be optional - in time computers will be more powerful, and 1Gb of texture memory onboard won't be a dream)
 
KnZ said:
Sappo
It's not just the animation thing, that's for sure) I've encountered that the strike is made ONLY when your weapon touches your enemy - for example, you can miss a thrust attack with a lance if you'll aim in the air near your enemy's head. This means that the game engine really calculates collisions - and this is great) There are many opportunities in using this engine feature - for example, this allows to calculate the track of a blow, and this can be used to paint wounds on enemy's texture. Hm... Once again the question of performance stands in the full height - different textures for each fighter... This would need about 10 times more texture memory than it is needed now. But this could be optional - in time computers will be more powerful, and 1Gb of texture memory onboard won't be a dream)

Pfff. Soldier of Fortune 2 does that, and that was years ago and my old as crap PC can run that game just fine. My new PC could run it like liquid butter.
 
SniperGuy
All this depends on the method of making this wounds staying on your enemies... Yes, you're right, I forgot about the SoF2) There was that feature there, but it's sourcecode is closed, and our dear developers don't know how it worked there (and maybe they know... It would be better if they know :wink: ), so they won't repeat it exactly... Depending on my own gamebuilding experience, if someone made some feature in his game, it doesn't automatically mean that this feature would be included in all games produced after the release of that one)) I can say that one feature in two different engines, for example D3D-based (M&B) and OpenGL-based (SoF), would use drastically different quantity of CPU time...
 
I always thought the the engine would put a decal over the texture, so it doesn't change the underlying texture.

Only need one slash texture, copied and transformed and you've got a very bloody person :smile:

I spose this sort of thing can be added later if needed, I agree that the mechanics of sword swinging needs to be looked at.

Although If I had a chioce between slash and thrust, I would always use slash, so maybe the randomness of your sword swing is actually good as it conveys the chaos of combat. Much more challenging too. :smile:
 
The first Soldier of Fortune game actually did a lot better job with hit location.

Hell, you could kill people by shooting them in the neck (or the groin :twisted: ).

But I do get annoyed while playing, and suddenly I'll do a chop instead of a swing. Cause the chop is always a little off to the side, so I usually end up missing the guy standing right in front of me.

I'd definitely like to be able to choose how to attack.
 
you should at least be able to hold one of the a/d keys down while you attack to determine which side your slash is gonna come from. but yeah, in a fight, iv always choose slash, because foes seem to block it less, is fast, and covers a very large swath in front of you. maybe nerf some of that and beef some of the other attack types, and let us choose what attack to use.
 
In terms of gore, I think the most important improvements and probably the easiest to do would be larger gushes of blood, blood trails on the ground, and dismemberment.

Dismemberment would rely on a few set criteria so not to be overused. First, the victim would need to be killed, obviously, so the check to see if he becomes dismembered would have to be done after the check to see if he is knocked unconscious, just to avoid problems with having dismembered guys knocked unconscious only to return to the next battle with the limb grown back. Second, slashing damage only. Third, if the final blow is done to the leg, the leg is chopped off, if to the torso then an arm is chopped off, if to the head then the head is lopped off. Fourth, the final blow would have to be very powerful, I'm talking at least 80 damage. Fifth and finally, there would need to be an extra random chance for it to occur. If it met all of the above criteria there should be a further 30-50% chance of it occurring. If dismemberment happened every other time you killed someone it would get old fast.

Right now I love how arrows will stick out of someone's face, but I believe there could always be improvements. For each "skin" of a character (like how there are 4 or 5 different skin tones to choose from each character) there coud be an extra bloody version made. If I knock a guy off of his horse with a hammer I'd like to see him lying on the ground with blood oozing out of his ears, nostrils and mouth.

Maybe this is all a bit too much but medieval combat is supposed to be extremely gory and I know I'm not alone in wishing that this game would be a hell of a lot messier.

One last thing, for killed units I think it would be awesome for a pool of blood to form. Nothing serious, just a seperate decal to be placed on the ground for a large blood stain, I don't mean a pool of blood in the literal sense unless it's over a stone floor.

Ooh, one last idea! If someone is killed in the water, his body should float. Even better if it starts floating downstream and the water turns a slight murky red. I'd love to see bodies floating face-down in a river with arrows sticking out of their backs.

Just gonna cross my fingers and hope at least one of these things get implemented eventually. :smile:
 
Many good ideas in this thread. Let me give some feedback:
(1) It's a great idea to differentiate between attacks more. I'll think about that.
(2) I guess we'll eventually add more gore. Floating corpses on water is a great idea BTW.
(3) Attack animations do need an overhaul.
(4) Binding slashing direction to movement keys is not a good thing since that makes it impossible to say, overswing while moving right. I'll try to come up with another system.
 
armagan said:
(4) Binding slashing direction to movement keys is not a good thing since that makes it impossible to say, overswing while moving right. I'll try to come up with another system.

Could you bind to different mouse buttons? Many gamers have additional mouse buttons (4+), and nearly everybody has 3 mouse buttons. It would be nice to have left and right click on the axes and stuff for left and right swing, and possibly have the center button for stab on the sword (which i think sucks on a horse anyway).
 
armagan said:
(2) I guess we'll eventually add more gore. Floating corpses on water is a great idea BTW.

Oooh - expanding on that slightly. Take their equipment weight into account. A raider wearing furs will float, but a black knight in full plate? Sink straight to the bottom.

Shouldn't be hard to do, I'd assume. If weight >/= 20 (or whatever), then floatcorpse = yes/no.

foreignkid said:
armagan said:
(4) Binding slashing direction to movement keys is not a good thing since that makes it impossible to say, overswing while moving right. I'll try to come up with another system.

Could you bind to different mouse buttons? Many gamers have additional mouse buttons (4+), and nearly everybody has 3 mouse buttons. It would be nice to have left and right click on the axes and stuff for left and right swing, and possibly have the center button for stab on the sword (which i think sucks on a horse anyway).

Double good idea! I've got a Microsoft explorer mouse. 5 buttons, so I could have an attack for each direction (left, right, overhead, thrust) and still have the mousewheel left over for zooming/interacting.
 
yes... the battle damage on the battlefield itself is great... looking over the field after a fight and seeing bodies strewn about, arrows sticking out of bodies and usually I can see a row of arrows/axes/javelins around where I was standing...

good stuff, can only get improved.

and yes, the bodies showing damage would be great, even just a texture showing a slash or blood spot... would help add
 
armagan said:
(4) Binding slashing direction to movement keys is not a good thing since that makes it impossible to say, overswing while moving right. I'll try to come up with another system.

Would click length be applicable?

I know some games where quickly tapping the mouse button will do one thing, while "holding" it (only for a moment) will do something else.

Could that be applied? So maybe a light tap on the mouse will do a chop, while a held down click would swing.
 
I would think that not being able to do an overhead swing whilst strafing is a fair tradeoff for controling the direction of attacks.

Technicaly its quite difficult to execute a *direct* overhead attack while running at an angle.
 
Sappo said:
when preparing the strike... i think its random if it goes to the left side or the right side... which means I often times have to haul back my arm before I charge, since that depends on which side of my horse I hit from.

we should at least be able to control that attack

Which side you swing from while on a horse is not random. You will swing to whichever side of the horse the aiming reticle is on. Sometimes you'll be approaching an enemy that is on the left of your horse, while the aim point is still on the right, and you'll swing to the right. Make sure you have the aim point on the side you want to swing, and you'll swing to that side 100% of the time.

(edit) It _is_ random while on foot.
 
I think the animation for hand to hand attacks looks a bit wussy.

By wussy I mean, your character doesn't look like he is putting much force behind the blow. This is something I first noticed when playing, but have forgotten about until now.
 
Yep click length as a modifier sounds sweet. you could have a two stage animation for that..

Has anyone played Gothic II?

That had a very cool hand to hand combat system (even if the game was kinda repetitive)
 
By wussy I mean, your character doesn't look like he is putting much force behind the blow. This is something I first noticed when playing, but have forgotten about until now.
Exactly, and I've even pointed out this to ipek with links to videos of RL swordplay. You must use body twist, leg movement and time your slashes right to achieve full potential of the blow.
Now, it's not that bad in some cases, and rather bad in other. I'm not all that good swordsman to go in great detail, too bad :sad:. But since it's visible 'to the naked eye'...
Oh, and btw - attacking while running should be rather poor anyway. W/o taking advantage of a proper stance, your attack force will suffer greatly.
 
Exactly, and I've even pointed out this to ipek with links to videos of RL swordplay. You must use body twist, leg movement and time your slashes right to achieve full potential of the blow.
Now, it's not that bad in some cases, and rather bad in other. I'm not all that good swordsman to go in great detail, too bad . But since it's visible 'to the naked eye'...
Oh, and btw - attacking while running should be rather poor anyway. W/o taking advantage of a proper stance, your attack force will suffer greatly.
I don not pretend to be a good swordsman too, but I fully agree. The real swordfight is not just a chaotic swordswinging from side to side with a hope to get your enemy (this will take MUCH of your breath and stamina, and soon... Smart enemy will just wait until you'll be tired and finish you off with a couple of deadly precize blows), but a contest of tactics, sometimes it is even more like a chess than swordfight. Everything is used - from feints to dirty strikes... And in MnB we see one tactics - counterattack.
Btw, here is one more suggestion - make something like a stamina or breath (like in Blade of Darkness). The heavier the weapon is, the more stamina (breath) it takes to make a strike... This could add some interesting moments to a fight.
And about the attack while running - remember Ahilles in Troy. He made a perfect attack in jump while running. We tried to do the same during our trainings - it this strike rocks!!! It is 2-3 times stronger than usual thrust...
Now, about the control of strike. Maybe you should do that way:
You press attack button (your camera rotation is now locked) and move your mouse left - character prepares a swing attack from left. If you'll move your mouse up - this will be a overhead swing. Down - thrust. Once you've prepared for a strike, camera rotation is unlocked once again. Something like that was in Daggerfall and Arena, if you remember. And maybe (a dream!) armagan could make an almost free attack system - so you can choose the direction of attack precisely, and not from just a set of animations... I think that the same should be done with blocks - this would make battles even more tactical)
I don't think the suggestion I've made is that hard to implement, so if some of you, suggesters :lol: , like it - let's ask armagan.
 
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