[Suggestion] La fatigue

[Papa Lazarou]

Anyone who proposes stamina, please tell me what improvement to the game would be achieved by a stamina system. I can't think of anything that wouldn't be better achieved by other mechanics.

Do you mean that because of melee fatigue, players would be able to gang up on another player, tire him out by forcing him to attack and then butcher him? If that's the case, then I grant you your point. But so what? This is exactly what happens in real fights. If two people go against one, it's a viable strategy to have one person try and tire somebody out while the other person circles around for the killing blow.

I don't think so. I'd imagine that two-on-one fights generally don't last long enough for anyone to get tired.

Rock-paper-scissors is very simplistic in my mind. 

That's the crux of your argument.  You still see RPS as being a strictly 3 element cycle

Not necessarily. I get the impression that it's simplistic when I hear about "block breaker" special moves and so on.

I'm all for measures and countermeasures, but rock-paper-scissors is too simple.

...
On the martials arts side of things, there's always counters to any technique, style or gameplan, provided you train hard enough.

Are you disagreeing with me or not?

You say RPS, I say measure and countermeasure. I like my wording more, because RPS to me implies rigidity, certainty, and excessive simplification. I'm calling this point moot.

I think the main difference between us is just that I think basic, realistic solutions are often best, while you (seemingly?) think they're inadequate, and instead propose features that I would call arbitrary. Part of that is a matter of preference about which I can't say you're "wrong", and part of it is a matter of fact about which neither of us can make certain judgements.

 

[test]

Let's go back to L4D for a moment, because it's the only game that has melee fatigue implemented instead of balanced recovery times like every competitive melee game, and instead of the stamina bars found in dead games

Melee fatigue works in L4D because it's an anti-turtle mechanic which stops stalemates, gets rid of dead-time, and pushes the action.
It was added because without it, survivors huddled in closets during crescendo events (when the alarm triggers and 1k zombies/bosses come after you), holding RMB and killing everything without taking damage.  While travelling, they'd turtle in tight groups to the next closet/crescendo event, holding down RMB, and covering each other's arcs so no infected could ever touch them. 

These are the properties of L4D melee:
-Survivor melee outranges all infected melee.
-Infected are unable to defend against melee, since there's no blocking.  There is no such thing as block, and move into range for a counter.
-Survivor melee has no recovery, and can be strung back to back.  There is no such thing as causing him to miss, and punishing wasted swings..
-Melee weapons instagib, and stun/push back when they don't.
-Melee hits every opponent within a 180 degree arc.
-Melee friendly fire frees teammates from ailments.
-Above all, melee's primary purpose is an impenetrable forcfield for turtling.

Hunter pounces would be repelled midair.  When they landed they'd be instantly knocked off.  Smokers (Mortal Kombat harpoon for isolating survivors) would have their tongue broken in .1 seconds, making them useless. .
Without fatigue, survivor melee stops up gameplay, and creates boring dead-time for the other side.


In M&B, the opposite is true.  Fatigue slows the action and favors turtling even more.
Zergs huddled together would pick off flankers and players who take the initiative more easily, as their smaller numbers would be too fatigued for sustained combat against larger forces.  A skilled player could win a fight, only to be picked off by the next guy since he'd be too fatigued to deal with him.  Any fatigue that affects fast weapons, would invariably affect slow ones as well.  It'd make no sense to have a 1h fatigue after 2 swings, and a warhammer fatigue after 4.  As the best way to win, people would go back to camping and staring at each other until Master of the Field came up.

In M&B:
-Attacks are attacks.
-Blocks are blocks.
-Blocking works in a large arc against multiple targets.
-Attacks only hit one target.
-Attacks have inertia and recovery times, which is used against the initiator.  Punishing wasted attacks is a huge part of combat.. 
-You can block, get into range, and stick to their face like zits.
-The only reward for inertia at the moment, is block-crush, and the currently non-functional stuns.

There's already a counter-attack going into the game, and kick, which are primarily wait-and-react tools, instead of tools for someone trying to push the action to create openings. 


Regarding body balance, we're basically on the same page.

Reapy summed it up well:

Stam won't let that happen. It will always be an arbitrary limit on what actions you can take.  You want that limit to be "I can make 4 attacks in a row" (just example). But that limit of 4 attacks in a row should be because, well if  I keep attacking I'm going to die. It should not be, well stam says I can hit 4 times max.  Do you get the difference? It is sort of subtle, but it has a big effect on the gameplay. The limit should be on "what works?" not "what is allowed?" .

I'm all for measures and countermeasures, but rock-paper-scissors is too simple.

...
On the martials arts side of things, there's always counters to any technique, style or gameplan, provided you train hard enough.

Are you disagreeing with me or not?

You say RPS, I say measure and countermeasure. I like my wording more, because RPS to me implies rigidity, certainty, and excessive simplification. I'm calling this point moot.

If you had bothered to read any of the stuff I linked or quoted, we wouldn't be having this discussion.  I love grappling sports, and when equally experienced practicioners are involved, it's totally like RPS.  There are just more (a near-infinite) amount of layers involved.  Techniques are countered and flow into other techniques, balance is shifted in fractions of a second.  The use of psychology (reading an opponent's emotional state, predicting/forestalling him, and break an opponent's rhythm) is far more important.    Popular competitive games are interesting to play and watch because they're capable of reflecting the intricacies, ever-evolving strategies, and flow of real life.

 

[Sidus Preclarum]

Why do all the guys who don't want it seem to assume that stamina would prevent actions, instead of slowing them down and making them less effective?! 

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Please tell me what the point of stamina would be!

Someone just name one thing that would be improved!

 

[test]

Please tell me what the point of stamina would be!

Someone just name one thing that would be improved!

Your life would be improved since you'd have one less video game to waste your time on!

 

[ScientiaExcelsa]

Please tell me what the point of stamina would be!

Someone just name one thing that would be improved!

Your life would be improved since you'd have one less video game to waste your time on!

Too bad that's too big to sig.

 

[Jericho]

Please tell me what the point of stamina would be! Someone just name one thing that would be improved!

Your life would be improved since you'd have one less video game to waste your time on!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
You can always edit it to make it fit into the sig box!

OT:
I wouldn't mind seeing something kind of like Stamina being implemented but by stamina I mean how long you
stay alive after suffering 80% health loss due to wounds received. If you want to tinker with "realism" then after
you've suffered a wound(s) to the point where you are more dead than alive, then you are definitely "bleeding"
out and would die fairly quickly. I've killed more than a couple folks after running around with only a sliver of health
left when irl I would've have dropped from loss of blood. 

 

[dstemmer]

Please tell me what the point of stamina would be!

Someone just name one thing that would be improved!

I've said it several times, but I'll mention it again:

I'm in favor of melee fatigue, which is slightly different than stamina.

Melee fatigue is when attacks speed begins to slow down after a number of successive attacks. The limit would be variable, dependent on weapon weight and whether it's held in two hands or not. A 1handed sword and a 2handed sword would have a similar fatigue caps, and heavy weapons like warhammers and 1handed morningstars would have a lower cap.

Here is one thing that would be improved by melee fatigue:

Say you have a Guy A with a fast weapon like a scimitar, awlpike or shortsword fighting Guy B who has a warhammer. If Guy A keeps spamming attacks, there is no opportunity for Guy B to get an attack in because his weapon speed is too slow -- even if he blocks
A's attack, he still won't be able to get his own attack off in time before A hits again.

The fact is, if Guy B doesn't have another weapon, this is a no-win scenario. I think in games like these it's always best to avoid no-win scenarios. Players should have the opportunity to use their skill to fight their way out of a disadvantaged situation.

Now consider what happens with melee fatigue. Let's say that the cap on the number of attacks before melee fatigue sets in is six for Guy A. So if Guy B can block/avoid 6 attacks, he has a reasonable chance to get a counterattack in, since fatigue has diminished guy A's attack rate. Now it's no longer a no-win scenario.

Melee fatigue would also improve gameplay in other ways.

• As Archonsod pointed out in his original proposal, it would bring more back-and-forth momentum to the fight, which would be a good thing IMO.
• Melee fatigue would be a more logical way to restrict heavy weapons than really low weapon speed. Do you like weapons 'hanging' in the air before an attack? I certainly don't. I'd rather limit the number of attacks a heavy weapon can make in a row and use inertia to punish them more heavily for missed swings instead of making them 'stick' at the beginning of an attack.

Fatigue slows the action and favors turtling even more.
Zergs huddled together would pick off flankers and players who take the initiative more easily, as their smaller numbers would be too fatigued for sustained combat against larger forces.  A skilled player could win a fight, only to be picked off by the next guy since he'd be too fatigued to deal with him.  Any fatigue that affects fast weapons, would invariably affect slow ones as well.  It'd make no sense to have a 1h fatigue after 2 swings, and a warhammer fatigue after 4.  As the best way to win, people would go back to camping and staring at each other until Master of the Field came up.

I don't agree with any of these assertions.

• As I said, it doesn't bother me if 1 guy tires an attacker out while the others go in for the kill. You call it 'zerging', but I call it 'teamwork'. Besides, fatigue wouldn't be a very long effect. It would only open you up to 1 or 2 attacks before wearing off.
• I explicitly say that fatigue should affect both fast and slow weapons. I also suggest slightly raising the speed of slow weapons (less hangtime before attacks, which is weird-looking and illogical) and increasing the effects of inertia and melee fatigue on them instead.
• No idea where you get the idea that melee fatigue would encourage camping. I see no explanation for that.

 

[test]

Teamwork is already encouraged.  Small forces that take the initiative don't have the support of ranged units or cavalry and get slaughtered enough as it is.  Ignoring the rain of arrows and cav gauntlet flankers face just to get to the fight, once they're in melee range they're dealing with multiple interrupts every time they chamber. There's the shield turtler facehugging from the front, while sharp sticks poke from beyond.  If you don't see how fatigue needlessly punishes/prevents melee initiators from doing their job, how that affects every other unit on the field, and how zerging encourages camping, then you haven't been in beta long enough.  Why you'd want the game to go back to 'stare 6 minutes for the flag' tactics of old versions is beyond me. 

Taking the initiative against all odds requires skill, timing and team cohesion far beyond camping a wall for 6 minutes.  Why would anyone make a gambit, if not only were there no incentives, but it was actively discouraged?  Millenia old games understand this fundamental concept of risk vs reward.  In Chess, pawns that have weathered the storm and reach 8th row become the most powerful unit in the game - queens.  In Checkers, a piece that reaches the edge of the board is crowned a king, capable of moving backwards and dominating the board.  Risk taking is to be encouraged, if anything. 

 

[dstemmer]

Teamwork is already encouraged.  Small forces that take the initiative don't have the support of ranged units or cavalry and get slaughtered enough as it is.  Ignoring the rain of arrows and cav gauntlet flankers face just to get to the fight, once they're in melee range they're dealing with multiple interrupts every time they chamber. There's the shield turtler facehugging from the front, while sharp sticks poke from beyond.

In my experience, flanking is mostly about circling just outside melee range, trying to draw away people from the main group. If nobody's paying attention to you, you move in and strike. If one person breaks off from the main group to engage you, you engage them one-on-one. If multiple people try and engage you, best to back off -- you've split the enemy zerg, you've done your job. If you do choose stay and fight against multiple people, you're generally not going to be able to get off enough attacks in a row for melee fatigue to apply -- that's those sharp sticks you mentioned. The only situation it would apply in is if you've just beaten one enemy one-on-one, and another suddenly arrives to engage you. In which case you might be obligated to defend for a few moments while the melee fatigue resets. I don't think it's nearly as big a deal as you make it out to be.

If you don't see how fatigue needlessly punishes/prevents melee initiators from doing their job, how that affects every other unit on the field, and how zerging encourages camping, then you haven't been in beta long enough.  Why you'd want the game to go back to 'stare 6 minutes for the flag' tactics of old versions is beyond me. 

Heh. One ad hominem attack and one straw man argument in the space of two sentences. Impressive.

I've been in beta since the beginning. And it's not my fault that you've failed to articulate why, exactly, you think fatigue would encourage camping.

 

[test]

In my experience, flanking is mostly about circling just outside melee range, trying to draw away people from the main group.

Which bad teams let you circle just out of melee range, that don't shoot you, don't throw axes in your face, and don't ride you down?  The reason why everyone camped in past versions was because melee was too slow with equipment, or too fragile without it.  Also once in range, they had no way of breaking off from a fight.  Either they stood and watched the entire match while the ranged units engaged in a sniping war, with cavalry hovering by the zerg camp running over/knocking down any unit that got close, or they got bored and ran in to get slaughtered.  Infantry not being able to do their job (unable to advance through the field or engage) has been somewhat alleviated with better backspeed and lessened encumbrance effects, but the tactics still fully apply if you're dumb enough to hover against smart players.

Infantry is only playable now because they can control range better, and coming across a larger group of players isn't overwhelming suicide.

If you don't see how fatigue needlessly punishes/prevents melee initiators from doing their job, how that affects every other unit on the field, and how zerging encourages camping, then you haven't been in beta long enough.  Why you'd want the game to go back to 'stare 6 minutes for the flag' tactics of old versions is beyond me. 

Heh. One ad hominem attack and one straw man argument in the space of two sentences. Impressive.

I've been in beta since the beginning. And it's not my fault that you've failed to articulate why, exactly, you think fatigue would encourage camping.

Overwhelming odds = more feints, more targets, and more swings.  You have to break shields.  The campers only have to hold block, facehug and poke once every few seconds.  I'm not sure why it's so hard to understand.

 

[dstemmer]

I've already addressed the concern that melee fatigue would encourage shield turtling. Here are the three solutions I presented:

(1) Hitting a shield doesn't cause melee fatigue -- only active block does.

(2) Change shields to only cover specific attack directions, like this:

I've changed my mind about board shields since I drew the picture; I think they should work like kite shields in the diagram. Note that with this scheme, round shields would work exactly like manual block, except that they'd also stagger the attacker, since the shield user is bashing the attacker's weapon away.

(3) Introduce a body balance system that discourages shield turtling by making repeated attacks more likely to knock down.

(1) would be easy to implement. (2) and (3) would be more wide-ranging changes

 

[Papa Lazarou]

First, sorry for not looking through the thread for an answer. Pretty shameful really!

Say you have a Guy A with a fast weapon like a scimitar, awlpike or shortsword fighting Guy B who has a warhammer. If Guy A keeps spamming attacks, there is no opportunity for Guy B to get an attack in because his weapon speed is too slow -- even if he blocks
A's attack, he still won't be able to get his own attack off in time before A hits again.

The fact is, if Guy B doesn't have another weapon, this is a no-win scenario.

I agree that if that happened often enough, it would be a problem. So there are two questions:
1. Does it happen often enough to be a problem?
2. What would be the best solution for this problem?

Your answers are "yes" and "stamina" I think? Both of mine are "I've no idea". I'm not convinced that stamina would be the best solution. One reason is that I doubt many real duels went that way. In reality there's no such spamming that can mechanically prevent someone from attacking. So, maybe we could make it that way in game. One way would be to rig the weapon speeds and delay after being blocked such that it was always possible to counter safely after blocking. Or we could make side or overhead swings with slow polearms faster (and weaker), with smaller movements, and give slow two-handers a quick jab or haft-bash (fast, relatively weak thrust attack) that could be used to counter where other strikes would be too slow. Or we could revamp (and maybe re-animate) the difference between so-called chambered and unchambered attacks - with the former being obvious, relatively slow to start, and having more inertia, and the latter being much quicker (always quick enough to use as a counter) but also weaker and less effective against armour.

Afterthought: We might also make it so that attacks could not be interrupted after a certain point. So if you get far enough through an attack, it will finish even if you get hit (and take damage) part way through. So, if you're getting spammed by a much faster weapon, you could just block, and start attacking in the delay - landing your hit and tolerating some damage from theirs.

So anyway, at this stage I don't think that stamina is the best solution to that problem. And for that matter, I'm not sure that that problem is frequent enough to worry about at all, though it might well be.

If it is, and if stamina is the best solution, I'd still consider it a sacrifice of realism. I'm not yet convinced such a sacrifice is necessary.

If you had bothered to read any of the stuff I linked or quoted, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Agreed. The same goes for if you had bothered to try understanding what I meant.

 

[dstemmer]

1. Does it happen often enough to be a problem?

Yes, yes and yes. The Awlpike is the worst offender, since it resets attacks faster instead of slower after blocking, but there are plenty of situations where it occurs. It's particularly a problem for low-ping players, who see the attack much later and by the time they launch a counterattack the other player has already started their swing. They need a more reliable way to interrupt attack chains.

2. What would be the best solution for this problem?

No idea! I like the suggestions, they're much more constructive than the doom-and-gloom and abstract Chess methaphors that Test tends to preach whenever there's an idea he doesn't like.

Let's go through them shall we?

One way would be to rig the weapon speeds and delay after being blocked such that it was always possible to counter safely after blocking.

This would be the ideal way to fix things, but I get the feeling it's impossible. You want weapons to have some variety, so weapon speeds need to be different. But for this to work, the slowest weapon needs to always be able to block and counterattack before the fastest weapon can attack again, accounting for player ping. That puts a pretty strict limit on the amount of difference you can have between the speeds of the fastest and slowest weapon. It might be possible if you punish heavy weapons in ways other than weapon speed (like increasing the effect of inertia on missed swings) but it might have a drastic effect on weapon balance.

Or we could make side or overhead swings with slow polearms faster (and weaker), with smaller movements, and give slow two-handers a quick jab or haft-bash (fast, relatively weak thrust attack) that could be used to counter where other strikes would be too slow.

Also a good idea, I'm all for a pommel strike or something for weapons that lack a thrust animation. Would be fast but have a longer range than a kick and also be blockable. I don't know if it would work, because if spammers know that the only strike that can make it through their attacks is a downward attack, they'll always block it. 'Course, then you could be sneaky and start a sideswing instead, while they're wasting time blocking downward...so maybe. I think I like this suggestion the best.

Or we could revamp (and maybe re-animate) the difference between so-called chambered and unchambered attacks - with the former being obvious, relatively slow to start, and having more inertia, and the latter being much quicker (always quick enough to use as a counter) but also weaker and less effective against armour.

Could work, but as you say would need new animations for every weapon, and animations are one of the major stumbling blocks of game development. Also, people would end up doing a lot of quick attacks by accident. When people want to fire off a R -> L attack on their mouse for instance, a lot of people play by jerking their mouse right over and over and going click-click-click-click...those players would be annoyed by not being able to pull off regular attacks the way they're used to anymore. Maybe you could only do 'quick' attacks while holding down block? Then again, that would annoy the people who want feinting switched back to the old system...hard decisions

Afterthought: We might also make it so that attacks could not be interrupted after a certain point. So if you get far enough through an attack, it will finish even if you get hit (and take damage) part way through. So, if you're getting spammed by a much faster weapon, you could just block, and start attacking in the delay - landing your hit and tolerating some damage from theirs.

Other people have suggested it before (was it you?), and yes it would be neat. Would make fighting against warhammers even more frightening than it already is.

I think you can tell I'm a fan of warhammers 

So anyway, at this stage I don't think that stamina is the best solution to that problem. And for that matter, I'm not sure that that problem is frequent enough to worry about at all, though it might well be.
If it is, and if stamina is the best solution, I'd still consider it a sacrifice of realism. I'm not yet convinced such a sacrifice is necessary.

I honestly have no idea how tiring it is swinging around a weapon, I've never done it. I think melee fatigue would be a reasonable abstraction, but so would most of the other alternatives you suggested.