General Combat/Skill/Tactical Suggestions

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I'm going to break this down into 3 parts, and try to keep each point separate from the other, while perhaps having them touch upon other ideas that have already been presented or are being implemented currently with ways of improving their functionaly or build.

Combat: I don't know how many of you have real combat experience, melee or otherwise, but based off my experience sans other previous suggestions here is what I see.

1.) Striking is far too slow when your character is built for speed.
I cheated and gave myself some 20+ agility, chose the fastest sword I could find, and still found my strikes to be painstakingly slow. To make things worse, when I was blocked either by shield or by weapon, I was left open for several seconds unable to block or parry any incoming blows. Speaking purely from a fighters standpoint, when you train to fight in melee combat, your draw-back is just as strong and as fast as your strike was, even when it is blocked. The reason is obvious: I don't want to die or get hurt so I come immediately back to a ready stance to either strike, block or parry once more.

2.) There should be a way to differentiate between a power fighter and a finesse fighter.
Think Jet Lee vs Rocky (Sylvester Stalone).

      Jet Lee is powerful because he is as skilled as he is fast. He is graceful and quick. He mixes his strikes, blocks, parrys, dodges and counterattacks fluidly. He is precise and coordinated. He is a Finesse fighter.

      Rocky (Sylvestor Stalone) is a beefy brick wall meant to take hits like a champion. He swings a couple very powerful blows and hopes he hits. If he does, down goes his opponent. If he doesn't hit them, he takes some hits and swings again. He is a power fighter.

Logistically speaking, in reference to tactical formations, there should be a way to put the beefy guy in front, and the finesse guy behind him.
       
      Side Note: In terms of physics, there is no way a swadian recruit with 5 strength should be able to
      push a character (namely my character) with strength of 12 off a ladder when laying siege to a castle.
      Same should go for any unit, hero, or lord in the game.

Skills: Skill(s) not previously mentioned that I believe have some merit pertaining to the rest of the game.

Combat/Leader Experience: This is directly related to the number of enemies killed, battles participated in, battles lost, tactical formations used. This is a Leader skill.
As I see it, the number of enemies killed, battles participated in and tactical formations used (by leaders) should increase this skill. As this skill increases, you should see an increase in tactics, there should be a bonus to troop damage, defense, attack speed, block speed, etc.

Combat Mastery: This is directly related to the number of enemies killed and battles participated in. This is a personal skill.
As the unit/hero/character kills enemies and participates in more battles, this skill should go up. As this skill goes up this should increase attack speed, block speed, movement speed, and precision.

Precision: Critical Damage.

Tactical: As it were, this is a complete reference to tactics.
The more you use a certain tactic, or mix of tactics, more should become available and the more effective said tactic should be. As an example: A shield wall when used only a couple times should decrease damage by 10% base, and decrease the rate of decay on a shield by 30% + 2% for each unit in the shield wall maxing out at 65%. When the shield wall is used many times it would decrease damage by 30%, and decrease the rate of decay on a shield by 40% + 4% for each unit in the shield wall maxing out at 80%. Perhaps a grouped skill could be implemented so that any mounted unit that attempts to charge through has a certain chances to be dismounted, take damage, or cause no charge damage and get stuck.

Suffice to say, I'm typing this out while feeding my 1 month old son at 3 am. I don't feel that I've completely expressed myself properly, but I do hope that the idea of what I'm trying to portray is getting through.
 
The whole critical damage/precision thing is not really something I would like to see in M&B I think it would be much better if there were just some more vulnerable spots in the armor.

The whole powerfighter and finesse fighter thing is a bit hard to implement and it could get even harder if formations are included. Now the whole finesse thing would be really hard to do because it could get to the point where the enemy couldn't get a chance to strike bacause you are too fast so he has to block all the time. The difference couldn't be that huge without changing the combat a lot.

As for the tactical part: I wouldn't add any bonuses as the shieldwall itself would be a huge bonus.

For the sidenote: it would be good if you could push the people weaker than you.
 
As it were, there should be some type of max speed that any single unit could attain, but I would also hope that a power fighter would just shrug off a strike from someone and push right through.

A guy with a strength of 6 hitting a guy with strength of 12 shouldn't really stun him enough to disrupt his attack. Do damage to him, maybe, but I doubt a strike like that would stop him from attacking.

The point is, tank vs striker. Spartans from behind a shield, while being slower behind a shield, still pushed through with their attack while blocking and pushing the enemy back. It was much slower than when they engaged in direct 1v1 combat, but the point remains. The puny persians were unable to stun them with their weak strikes while the spartans made there strike regardless of blows against them.
 
It had nothing to do with weak strikes. They lost because of inferior terrain (The spartans parked themselves on the bending path of a shoreline ridge) and far inferior armor and weapons (The army was comprised primarily of tribesmen who had poor quality bows and even poorer arrows which shattered on the spartans armor and shields worthlessly)
 
Have you ever tried to push 3-4 people backward? Thats takes some strength if they're trying to kill you.

No matter how solid your shield is, and how weak their armor or weapon is, it's no easy task to push a cumulative 450+ lbs of dead weight backward by yourself, let alone that same weight that doesn't want to be pushed backward, and as a matter of fact is pushing back at you.

So, when 300 Spartans push 1000 persians off a cliff, it's not their shield that did it. (Not to say it didn't help, but it does take quite a bit of raw undeniable strength to push that kind of weight.)
 
Mazhron said:
Have you ever tried to push 3-4 people backward? Thats takes some strength if they're trying to kill you.

No matter how solid your shield is, and how weak their armor or weapon is, it's no easy task to push a cumulative 450+ lbs of dead weight backward by yourself, let alone that same weight that doesn't want to be pushed backward, and as a matter of fact is pushing back at you.

So, when 300 Spartans push 1000 persians off a cliff, it's not their shield that did it. (Not to say it didn't help, but it does take quite a bit of raw undeniable strength to push that kind of weight.)
Ya git, I just said they didn't push many at a time  :roll: Maybe 300-400 in cloth-leather armor. Compared to their 1000 in metal to cloth armor (You seem to forget they had around 700 tribesman behind them (The spartans that is) on their side who stayed back to fight along side them) the whole point of their strategy was to position themselves so the enemy couldn't build sufficient force to push them back. Yuo also have to add in that 300 men dressed head to toe in bronze armor far outweight even maybe 500 men in cloth armor. Add in that unlike the tribesmen, the spartans and their allies were NOT force marching for years, AND add in teh fact that they weren't just pushing with that shieldwall, but jamming spears into the men that were bashing into it and you can see they werent actually even pushing if it came to it, all 10000 men, but were actually holding back only the front few rows due to the fact that after murdering the first two or three rows, they were holding back a pile of bodies AND their shields against the onrush of 500-1000 men.
 
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