(An)other combat suggestion

[Erik]

This is about a whole combat system I designed just for Vintage Story. The system is described in the Combat.pdf. With 7630 words about combat, this is surely my most expansive and detailed, also my best, combat suggestion. The paper not only details what and how to implement things, but also why. It has some sections that leave multiple options or just rough ideas, because documenting everything would need another ten pages, which no one would actually read.

Have fun reading it and tell me your suggestions and feedback, what you liked, didn't like or didn't understand!

Combat.pdf

[Stroam]

There was a lot to go through made more difficult by the information density and writing style. I think part of the issue is so many ideas going through your head when you started writing this as the ideas seem to be more refined later in the paper. Also while you go through each piece which is good, you don't describe a combat scenario so it is difficult to see how all the pieces work together. Moving past the writing there were several things I liked. Attacks not being instant, stamina, customizable weapons and armor with no tier system to name a few.

I think initially judging distance may be difficult but I believe people will pick up on it pretty quickly.

The section for controls you should include that Y is actually Z for most. You mentioned that much further down but I feel like that should be mentioned up in the controls as well.

I'm confused about stamina. you state, "When the stamina isn't enough to do an action, the action is either not possible or isn't as effective." and then these conflicting statements

• A normal attack always drains a bit of stamina, the cost depending on the weapon used.
• Generally, stamina is a resource to manage, it's like a second health bar. It however isn't something that will prevent you from attacking
• Sprinting: Does now consume stamina instead of food. Sprinting is only possible when above very low stamina.
• When at low stamina (one quarter left), movement speed is slightly lower.
• Jumping: Consumes stamina.
• Can also jump without stamina.
• Stamina doesn't regenerate when used, it takes half a second to start regenerating after being used.
• while being knockback or knockdown staggered, stamina regeneration is drastically increased.

After going over this twice I still am not sure what actions in and outside of combat use stamina and what things having low or no stamina will do.

In the movement section you state, "But having control of general speed won't cut it, there should also be ways to change the movement speed of specific direction." Why?

In the stagger section, you say, "Furthermore, if the player is attacked while being staggered, all active stagger effects length gets shortened. This should prevent players being stagger locked, while making stagger still very effective." I fail to see how this prevents stagger locking an opponent as each time a new stagger is applied it has the full length of time. I also don't see how this could prevent someone from timing their staggers to keep you staggered locked especially if you are out of stamina and knocked down.

The whole parry/blocking system I'd really have to see in action to be sold on how you presented it. Some diagrams showing parring and block sequences would go a long way. Without them, I'm unable to wrap my head around how this isn't overpowered like the video you linked mentions at 8 minutes 39s. What stops me from blocking and then letting go of block right in the window to parry?

As to your weapon armor interaction system, I don't like it. I also don't fully understand it. I know swords and daggers are small light weapons that are useless against armored foes. I know heavy maces are good again anyone with or without armor who doesn't have thick padding. I know spiked maces are good even if they do have thick padding. I don't see how your system reflects that. I could be wrong because again I don't fully understand it.

I would also like to see more consideration on how these things will change how player play outside of combat. For instance, sprinting or dodging with backpacks loaded with rock and ore. Fighting things while climbing or swimming. The speed at which you can turn around. Then there's the whole hot bar mess with moving items around which you say an equip animation but then lets say you are just trying to move it out of your hotbar.

[Erik]

Thanks for the feedback.

36 minutes ago, Stroam said:

There was a lot to go through made more difficult by the information density and writing style. I think part of the issue is so many ideas going through your head when you started writing this as the ideas seem to be more refined later in the paper. Also while you go through each piece which is good, you don't describe a combat scenario so it is difficult to see how all the pieces work together. Moving past the writing there were several things I liked. Attacks not being instant, stamina, customizable weapons and armor with no tier system to name a few.

Yeah, my writing style is sometimes all over the place, but it was intentional to be somewhat vague at the beginning of the paper, to not overwhelm the reader with things that get explained later. Could you try to point out the exact chapters, where the writing has a lot of problems, so I can look into rewriting them?

A combat scenario would indeed be something useful to add, that's a great idea.

42 minutes ago, Stroam said:

 The section for controls you should include that Y is actually Z for most. You mentioned that much further down but I feel like that should be mentioned up in the controls as well.

I'll fix, thanks for pointing it out.

43 minutes ago, Stroam said:

 I'm confused about stamina. you state, "When the stamina isn't enough to do an action, the action is either not possible or isn't as effective." and then these conflicting statements

•  A normal attack always drains a bit of stamina, the cost depending on the weapon used.
•  Generally, stamina is a resource to manage, it's like a second health bar. It however isn't something that will prevent you from attacking
•  Sprinting: Does now consume stamina instead of food. Sprinting is only possible when above very low stamina.
• When at low stamina (one quarter left), movement speed is slightly lower.
•  Jumping: Consumes stamina.
•  Can also jump without stamina.
•  Stamina doesn't regenerate when used, it takes half a second to start regenerating after being used.
•  while being knockback or knockdown staggered, stamina regeneration is drastically increased.

 After going over this twice I still am not sure what actions in and outside of combat use stamina and what things having low or no stamina will do.

I should probably make a list of actions that use stamina and actions that get influenced by the remaining stamina. Most things use stamina, but aren't effected by it. The main things that are effected by stamina are defensive (blocking, parrying) and evasive (dodge, running) actions.

48 minutes ago, Stroam said:

 In the movement section you state, "But having control of general speed won't cut it, there should also be ways to change the movement speed of specific direction." Why?

To make things like lover backward movement velocity or accelerating attacks possible. I'll change the wording, as these things only are mentioned in later chapters.

49 minutes ago, Stroam said:

 In the stagger section, you say, "Furthermore, if the player is attacked while being staggered, all active stagger effects length gets shortened. This should prevent players being stagger locked, while making stagger still very effective." I fail to see how this prevents timing you staggers to stagger lock an opponent as each time a new stagger is applied it has the full length of time. I also don't see how this could prevent someone from timing their staggers to keep you staggered locked especially if you are out of stamina and knocked down.

Yeah, these are valid balance concerns. I didn't have in mind, the player can be staggered while being staggered, it makes much more sense to remove that. So players can't be staggered while already staggered, their stagger length will only be cut down. The main way to prevent stagger locking is still dodging out of staggers, so stagger locking should theoretically be very hard, if not impossible.

54 minutes ago, Stroam said:

 The whole parry/blocking system I'd really have to see in action to be sold on how you presented it. Some diagrams showing parring and block sequences would go a long way. Without them, I'm unable to wrap my head around how this isn't overpowered like the view you linked mentions at 8 minutes 39s. What stops me from blocking and then letting go of block right in the window to parry?

Blocks only transform into parries, if the players let go of the block key, less than one second (lenght of parry) after starting the block. I'll look into the wording of my text, "timeframe" may be the wrong word to describe the length of the parry. I don't get what the diagrams should show, maybe a table comparing and listing the effects of the block and parry?

1 hour ago, Stroam said:

 As to your weapon armor interaction system, I don't like it. I also don't fully understand it. I know swords and daggers are small light weapons that are useless against armored foes. I know heavy maces are good again anyone with or without armor who doesn't have thick padding. I know spiked maces are good even if they do have thick padding. I don't see how your system reflects that. I could be wrong because again I don't fully understand it.

I'll change the wording of the armor system a bit, as piercing and penetrating sound to similar. Each piece of armor has three values: Critical success (deflect) likeliness, critical failure (penetration) likeliness and a damage reduction value in percent. So when a piece gets hit, a "dice gets rolled", if there will be a critical success or failure, depending on the armor values. In the case a critical success gets rolled, all damage is blocked (deflected), but the stamina gets damaged. This represents a hit getting entirely blocked by armor. If a critical failure gets rolled, the armor gets bypassed entirely, ignoring the armors defense and dealing full damage. This represents a hit entirely going through the armor. If neither a critical success nor failure is rolled, the damage gets reduced by the defense value, stamina damage gets dealt for the reduced damage, so the victim doesn't take the full hit. This represents a hit, that bypasses some armor, but still gets hindered a lot by it. Maces deal less damage, but have some armor penetration (I think I need to settle on a name for this). This is a percentage value and reduces the critical success likeliness when hitting armor. That makes maces especially helpful when dealing with heavy armored targets, but less helpful when dealing with other targets.

1 hour ago, Stroam said:

 I would also like to see more consideration on how these things will change how player play outside of combat. For instance, sprinting or dodging with backpacks loaded with rock and ore. Fighting things while climbing or swimming. The speed at which you can turn around. Then there's the whole hot bar mess with moving items around which you say an equip animation but then lets say you are just trying to move it out of your hotbar.

I don't want to hinder the player too much outside combat. With "equip animation" I just meant an animation that plays, when switching to that item. The animation only prevents using that item, not switching to another item and it would only be applied to weapons. While climbing the player shouldn't be able to fight or do anything else than climbing, as climbing requires two hands. I haven't thought much about underwater/swimming combat, it should be possible, no changes needed. Maybe underwater combat can slow down your attacks, just to make it somewhat more unique.

[Tyron]

Great work erik! Thanks for your contributions. I would indeed need to overhaul the first person mode (either proper held item animations or merging 1st and 3rd person mode), something that's been on my mind a while now. Then a combat update would be a lot easier.

[Erik]

1 hour ago, Tyron said:

Great work erik! Thanks for your contributions. I would indeed need to overhaul the first person mode (either proper held item animations or merging 1st and 3rd person mode), something that's been on my mind a while now. Then a combat update would be a lot easier.

I would recommend not completely merging first and third person animations, as that can turn out to be quite clunky and can cause many clipping problems. One additional problem with merging the animations is, that the head moves first and the body drags after the head in third person. This can look really clunky and is definitely not advisable. The solution may be to lock the body to the head in first person and separate them in third person, still only requiring one set of animation. Or you cold make separate hand animations for first person, which would allow for some additional details, like always seeing your hands.

[redram]

Very thorough and well prepared document Erik.  I can't really comment with any authority on stuff that refers to other combat-centric games, as I've never been a fan of such games and have never played any of the other combat games people are referring to here, except skyrim.  It's been several years since I played that though, and nothing about the combat system really sticks out in my mind.  I do think it'd be useful to have some charts that show what causes stagger, what causes stamina loss, etc. 

I'm still a bit skeptical of the thesis that VS needs a 'good' combat system to succeed (given that in the doc 'good' basically means 'complex').  I still am of the opinion that this isn't really that type of game.  I know pvp is of no interest to me, and I wouldn't play on a server which had that outside of very controlled circumstances (such as an arena).

As such, the pvp aspects of the system aren't really of interest to me.  But how it would play out with mobs is very much of interest to me, but that was hardly touched upon in the doc.   I think that mobs would have to basically ignore aspects of the system (unlimited stamina, or very limited stamina-draining actions)  or would simply have to mostly operate outside of the system, to be effective.

One of the biggest issues I take with it is that '2 or 3 unblocked hits will kill you'.   That seems way too excessive to me.   It's fine to say that they *can* kill you if you're not geared, but the player should be able to counter that with non-active measures, imo (i.e. armor).  Not every player has the coordination necessary to use blocks and dodges as described, and they're not going to enjoy the game much if they're constantly getting 2 to 3 hit killed.

I do agree that weapons should have extremely low damage variance.  I take it further in that I think weapons of a given type should have the same damage regardless of material, but the damage should be reduced based on the armor of the target.  bronze weapon vs leather armor might mean 100% damage gets through, bronze weapon vs copper armor 80%, bronze vs bronze 50%, bronze vs steel 25%, etc.  There could always be at least some getting through, or there could be a floor.  Kind of depends how many tiers we end up with.  This is what I like to call a 'tier vs tier' system of weapons and armor.  It avoids the runaway damage inflation a lot of games (including TFC) had, in order to make tiering up have significant.  It's bad for the game in that your top tier weapon ends up 1-shotting low level mobs that maybe shouldn't be.   Whereas if a weapon basically has a max damage, you can ensure that a bear, for instance, will always take X hits with a sword no matter what. 

I don't really see a need for many more armor locations.  We've already got 5 - body legs head feet hands.  Or 3 if you don't consider feet and hands.  I don't see where it improves the combat system to have many more, and it probably creates a bunch of extra wear locations that now have to have clothing.  I could see the logic in perhaps having sleeves separate from body - arm armor could affect weapon speed more or less, while torso armor could be heavier without affecting that.   But I'm not sure much else would be more than cosmetic.

I don't see how limiting armor materials makes the system 'more interesting'.  It reduces variety, and works against the main thrust of the game, which is mining metal.  Right now we'd only have 5 tiers of actual armor.  That's not including tier 0 (no armor) and assuming, as you suggest, that padded and leather are the same. That's not that many tiers.  It's enough that all tiers can having meaning in a tier vs tier system, I think.

So overall, sounds like a feasible setup for pvp (though I don't think it's necessary).  I'd like to hear more about how mobs will deal with it.   I don't think 2-3 hit lethality is a good idea.    And I'd propose a somewhat different system of weapons and armor and their interactions.

[Stroam]

On 8/3/2018 at 4:01 AM, Erik said:

Yeah, my writing style is sometimes all over the place, but it was intentional to be somewhat vague at the beginning of the paper, to not overwhelm the reader with things that get explained later. Could you try to point out the exact chapters, where the writing has a lot of problems, so I can look into rewriting them?

A combat scenario would indeed be something useful to add, that's a great idea.

sure. First off tab the start of a paragraph or put a line of space between paragraphs. That'll help break it up visually more than intimidating text blocks of doom. Whatever style you choose, stick with it though. I see you do the line of space in some spots and not others.

Try to keep paragraphs to fewer than eight sentences long. Look at feinting for a horrible offender of big text block with tons of sentences. By breaking up the text you are giving the reader a brief pause to interpret what they just read. Think of it like trying to memorize a poem. Most need to break it up into smaller pieces to remember.

To further break up the text include some diagrams where appropriate. For instance, you mention multiple parts of an attack. A diagram showing these parts and when certain actions such as feinting and blocking can be done would be helpful not only to break up the text but helps communicate your ideas in another way which is helpful for those who like to visualize. "After hit detection, the attack gets either blocked, misses, hits a block, hits a parry, hits the target, gets blocked by the targets armor or multiple of these things happening." is just begging for a diagram of what you just described.

Stamina is one of those sections that needs work. What actions consume stamina? What happens to those actions should you not have the required stamina? What are the debuffs of being low on stamina?

Not all of this needs to be in the section for stamina. Since lots of things use it and you go over each thing in turn, a summary after all the things would help people what they may have already forgotten and then you can see all the effects of stamina in one spot.

[Erik]

 

3 hours ago, redram said:

I do think it'd be useful to have some charts that show what causes stagger, what causes stamina loss, etc. 

Yeah, that would be useful. But it's a lot of work, I didn't even mention every instance where stagger of stamina loss occurs, because I don't wanted it to be too overwhelming for the reader.

3 hours ago, redram said:

As such, the pvp aspects of the system aren't really of interest to me.  But how it would play out with mobs is very much of interest to me, but that was hardly touched upon in the doc.   I think that mobs would have to basically ignore aspects of the system (unlimited stamina, or very limited stamina-draining actions)  or would simply have to mostly operate outside of the system, to be effective.

This is a valid point of critique, combat is indeed designed for humans fighting. I hope there will be other humanoid NPCs added, which would be able use the combat system to its fullest extend, but I think this is very likely, seeing traders being implemented. I quickly described how to handle enemies in one chapter, each non humanoid enemy needs to be designed to have custom attacks and defenses. This can be a lot of work, but it really pays of, adding a lot of content to the game. Creatures should of course utilize some aspects of the system, like stamina (if possible) or stagger, but these restrictions will be tailored towards the creatures, so giants can't be staggered easily, but stagger enemies with ease.

3 hours ago, redram said:

One of the biggest issues I take with it is that '2 or 3 unblocked hits will kill you'.   That seems way too excessive to me.   It's fine to say that they *can* kill you if you're not geared, but the player should be able to counter that with non-active measures, imo (i.e. armor).  Not every player has the coordination necessary to use blocks and dodges as described, and they're not going to enjoy the game much if they're constantly getting 2 to 3 hit killed.

This 2 to 3 hits statement only really applies to unarmored players. Armor should make you significantly sturdier, but not invincible. In my armor system, heavy armored targets defenses depend a lot on randomness, so he could, if he had really bad luck, die in 2 to 3 hits, but will most likely survive 6-7 hits. This helps keep up the suspense of combat, as every hit could be your last.

3 hours ago, redram said:

I don't really see a need for many more armor locations.  We've already got 5 - body legs head feet hands.  Or 3 if you don't consider feet and hands.  I don't see where it improves the combat system to have many more, and it probably creates a bunch of extra wear locations that now have to have clothing.  I could see the logic in perhaps having sleeves separate from body - arm armor could affect weapon speed more or less, while torso armor could be heavier without affecting that.   But I'm not sure much else would be more than cosmetic.

Now I'm also really unsure, how many armor locations to add. Keeping the count low would be good for the system, as it decreases the randomness. A higher count would however allow for much more customization. I think five pieces might be the magic number: Foot, legs, torso, arms, head. Smithing could be used to archive high degrees of customization instead. 

3 hours ago, redram said:

I don't see how limiting armor materials makes the system 'more interesting'.  It reduces variety, and works against the main thrust of the game, which is mining metal.  Right now we'd only have 5 tiers of actual armor.  That's not including tier 0 (no armor) and assuming, as you suggest, that padded and leather are the same. That's not that many tiers.  It's enough that all tiers can having meaning in a tier vs tier system, I think.

Six categories of armor are perfect: Padding, chainmail, plate, padding-chainmail, padding-plate, chainmail-plate. There could also be some variations on those categories, sub-categories, like scaled mail (chainmail), lorica segmentata (plate), fur (padding). Every armor category has a meaning, as each do very different things: Padding increases damage reduction, plate increases chances of critical successes (deflects) and chainmail loweres chances of critical failures (penetrations). Plate armor from different metals would of course have different properties and this is reflected in slight stat variations.

The of limiting armor materials is something that is very crucial to my tier progression system. Because stat increases are very minor, a bronze sword doesn't do much less damage than a steel sword, there needs to be another way to make better metals, well, better. So I decided to take the realistic approach, limiting weapon and armor types to specific materials. This isn't as drastic as it sounds: No copper armor, no bronze chainmail. So progressing through the metal tier will allow the player to create new types of armor or weapons, which will feel very rewarding. This can also be used to make some metals much more unique, like allowing a bastard sword to be forged out of black bronze, or a unique type of armor, that can only(!) be forged out of normal iron.

About your tier-system: I think it is a good and very simple system for a game focused on progression, as it allows for a very controlled environment.  The problem I have with it, is that it overpowers any player skill and turns the game into a character gear based one, something I set to avoid, as I want to make combat player skill based. Another problem with this system is, that there always is a "best" material and therefore a best armor and weapon. This makes players all run around in the same gear, sucking any customization and different playstyles out of the game. Late game players will also be able to kill early game players, while being untouchable. Any bronze armor would be the same, the system doesn't allow for different qualities and therefore also limits the smithing system.

But still: Thanks for your feedback, it's very valuable!

[redram]

On 8/5/2018 at 12:20 PM, Erik said:

The of limiting armor materials is something that is very crucial to my tier progression system. Because stat increases are very minor, a bronze sword doesn't do much less damage than a steel sword, there needs to be another way to make better metals, well, better. So I decided to take the realistic approach, limiting weapon and armor types to specific materials. This isn't as drastic as it sounds: No copper armor, no bronze chainmail. So progressing through the metal tier will allow the player to create new types of armor or weapons, which will feel very rewarding. This can also be used to make some metals much more unique, like allowing a bastard sword to be forged out of black bronze, or a unique type of armor, that can only(!) be forged out of normal iron.

I hear what you're saying on making the tiers more different, rather than each having the same types of armor, just different colors.  It's a way to go.  I would at least allow copper to be used for shields, so it has *some* use in armor. Maybe also a breast plate.  It's already a metal soon left behind, but at the same time the player can be stuck on it awhile if they can't find bronze readily.  Allow them to use it for some armor, even if not the full range.  

It's all well and good to take a 'realistic' approach, but for one thing the game already allows unrealistic uses of metals, in that you have copper anvils, which would not be a thing irl, as I understand it.  Bronze anvils looked very different from the way the game depicts them (far smaller) I think its also debatable whether you could make an effective scythe of copper or bronze (sickles certainly though).  Also the game basically takes an exact opposite approach to rl when it comes to copper vs iron, that being that irl iron is far more common that copper, and so the economics are somewhat reversed.  Point being, I think it's better for the tech to match the realities of the game, than to match rl, when there is a conflict.

Regarding your system, I think it could be entirely adapted to a tier vs tier weapon-armor strategy.  The percentages simply respond to relative tier disparity as opposed to straight metal, with certain bonuses based on type of armor possible in either case.  And then you can have a dead-flat weapon damage, as opposed to even a 50% increase.  I'm a big fan of flat(er) weapon damage, and I think we have convergent thoughts there.   It allows extra processes like case hardening or pattern welding to play a bigger part, without absolutely distorting the overall scale.

[Erik]

38 minutes ago, redram said:

 I hear what you're saying on making the tiers more different, rather than each having the same types of armor, just different colors.  It's a way to go.  I would at least allow copper to be used for shields, so it has *some* use in armor. Maybe also a breast plate.  It's already a metal soon left behind, but at the same time the player can be stuck on it awhile if they can't find bronze readily.  Allow them to use it for some armor, even if not the full range.  

Wooden and copper shields should be a thing, but I haven't really thought out shield progression completely. I like the idea of only allowing copper breast plates. Copper should be the entry level metal and therefore significantly weaker than others, as it's significantly superior to stone. Having such significant steps will feel really rewarding and introduce features and content gradually, which makes things easier to learn, so I think leaving copper a "bad" metal benefits the game.

43 minutes ago, redram said:

 It's all well and good to take a 'realistic' approach, but for one thing the game already allows unrealistic uses of metals, in that you have copper anvils, which would not be a thing irl, as I understand it.  Bronze anvils looked very different from the way the game depicts them (far smaller) I think its also debatable whether you could make an effective scythe of copper or bronze (sickles certainly though).  Also the game basically takes an exact opposite approach to rl when it comes to copper vs iron, that being that irl iron is far more common that copper, and so the economics are somewhat reversed.  Point being, I think it's better for the tech to match the realities of the game, than to match rl, when there is a conflict.

Gameplay should always be more important than realism, but interesting gameplay is often possible with realism. I think, some tool/things shouldn't exist in the copper stage, because they ether aren't needed or useful (anvil, hammer, propick) or aren't realistic enough and already partly implemented by another tool (scythe, shears, overlap with knife) and would fit better to enhance the significance of other metal tiers.

54 minutes ago, redram said:

 Regarding your system, I think it could be entirely adapted to a tier vs tier weapon-armor strategy.  The percentages simply respond to relative tier disparity as opposed to straight metal, with certain bonuses based on type of armor possible in either case.  And then you can have a dead-flat weapon damage, as opposed to even a 50% increase.  I'm a big fan of flat(er) weapon damage, and I think we have convergent thoughts there.   It allows extra processes like case hardening or pattern welding to play a bigger part, without absolutely distorting the overall scale.

It would be possible, but much of the original tier system would be lost, like the simplicity. Other than that, I simply don't see the advantages of this system being needed, they still directly go against my design philosophy of player skill > player gear. I want to make gear less important (but still very useful), while you want to make gear more important (while not having overpowering one-hit weapons).

[Erik]

A combat example

After reading all this, you may still have no idea, how combat may play. This is a hypothetical scenario of a fight between two persons.

The first person, I’ll call him Olaf, is a heavy armored fighter with a sword and shield. He wears full steel-chainmail-plate armor, his sword is also made out of steel and he uses a steel shield. All this gear makes him 30% slower than an unarmored person.

His opponent, I’ll call him Jürgen, is a medium armored, longsword wielding fighter. Most of his armor is just padded armor, but he wears padded-chainmail on his chest and a padded-plate helmet on his head, both made out of steel. His longsword’s blade is made out of white steel and deals 50% more damage than Olaf’s sword, while also having 20% armor penetration and 35% longer reach, but attacking 30% slower.

Olaf takes a defensive stance, blocking with his shield. This however further limits his already limited movement. Jürgen uses this to his advantage, as he can stay out of Olaf’s reach, while still being able to attack Olaf. Jürgen launches a power attack at Olaf. Olaf, still blocking, gets hit by the attack and takes a lot of stamina damage and being unable to block for a while.

Unable to attack Jürgen, because he is out of reach, Olaf waits for the shield stagger to end, while Jürgen is launching another attack at Olaf. Just as Jürgen was to hit Olaf, he raises his shield and successfully parries Jürgen, knocking him a bit back and making him unable to attack for a short while.

Olaf uses the time to close the distance between him and Jürgen. Olaf and Jürgen launch an attack at the same time. Jürgen realizes his mistake and quickly performes a defensive feint, transforming his attack into a parry. He successfully parries Olaf, taking no damage.

Jürgen can’t attack directly after his defensive faint, so he backs of. The distance causes Olaf, who has just been staggered, to block. While Olaf blocks, Jürgen can regenerate some stamina. He then launches another power attack at Olaf, attempting to break his block.

Olaf ends the block and moves backwards, trying to get out of reach. Jürgen closes in on him, but Olaf dodges to the side, to escape the attack.

The long recovery time of Jürgen’s power attack leaves him vulnerable, as Olaf closes in on him.

Olaf launches an attack, Jürgen quickly parring. As Jürgen parried too early, Olaf uses the opportunity to perform an offensive faint and attack again, quickly afterwards. This has him very low on stamina, but the attack couldn’t be blocked by Olaf and hits.

The attack hits the legs, which are protected by padded armor. Not being a deflect or penetration, the attacks damage gets lowered by the armor, but still has Jürgen on two thirds of his health.

Having Jürgen knocked back and unable to attack, Olaf tries to hit Jürgen a second time, but this time he successfully parries. Olaf is now at a big disadvantage, knocked back and attack-staggered, as he has not enough stamina left to fully block an attack.

Jürgen takes the opportunity to launch a power attack at him, and while Olaf was able to block the attack, he gets knocked down, unable to attack, move or defend himself. Jürgen is able to get two hits on Olaf, one being deflected and the other one hitting, causing Olaf’s health to fall beneath 50%.

Having regenerated almost half of his stamina, Olaf decides to dodge out of his stagger, right as Jürgen launches another attack at him.

The tides turned, now Jürgens stamina is very low. Olaf launches a power attack at him. Jürgen tries to parry, but he started too late. This mistake leads to him being hit. This time his chest has been hit, the blow gets softened by the armor, but the power attack hit him down to his last 10% of health.

Jürgen unable to attack and knocked back, out of stamina, Olaf attacks again. Jürgen quickly tries to parry the attack, but Olaf feints his attack offensively, attacking shortly after the faint. The blow killed Jürgen, his mistake being paid with his life.

This is how I expect my system to play, stagger forcing players to take turns, quick reactions being rewarded and every mistake being able to be the last one.

[Stroam]

Do you think such a fast reaction system is ideal for a server-client connection which sometimes experiences lag?

[Erik]

1 hour ago, Stroam said:

Do you think such a fast reaction system is ideal for a server-client connection which sometimes experiences lag?

Every connection can sometimes experience lag. And every combat system would suffer from it. To make combat an ideal experience, the server needs to focus on calculating and sending data on two or more players in proximity.

[Stroam]

7 minutes ago, Erik said:

And every combat system would suffer from it.

Sure but there are ways to decrease or increase the negative effects of lag. Fast paced is a good way to increase the negative effects while a slower paced combat is a way to decrease the negative effects of lag.

[Stroam]

Found a video where someone who has spent a great deal of time researching weapons, armor, and video game pvp mechanics is pretty much saying what you outlined.

 

[Erik]

I feel like the whole document could use a rewrite, but I sadly don't have the time or motivation to do that anytime soon, but I've recently been thinking about combat a bit more and got some new ideas:

While I still think the system I outlined is good, I think it has a major problem: The skill ceiling may be a bit too low and there isn't much room for player expression, i.e. different combat styles. This may make the system very repetitive in the long run and the low skill ceiling may cause duels to take forever, because blocking may be to easy.

To fix this, I'd split the attack (and power attack) into four directional attacks, based on the last movement direction at the time of pressing (releasing for power attacks) the attack button. So attacking while moving right will cause a swing which comes from the right, attacking while moving back causes a stab attack, forward an overhead swing. The attacks could be slightly different in damage output, reach, speed and the hit detection cone, but not in armor penetration, so spamming only one type of attack wouldn't be promoted.

Power attacks would be "winding up" the animation, holding the weapon in the start position of the attack animation, which would be fired, when the player would release the attack button. If the player moves in this "wind up"-phase, the position the player holds the weapon would change accordingly.

Having only four very distinct animations for attacking makes the type of attack very readable, which is required for the next addition: Chambering.

Chambering is a new defensive AND offensive option at the same time. It's hard to pull of, but very rewarding. It's a attack that also acts as a parry and only costs the stamina cost of the attack. To use this new action, the player needs to mirror the attack of the enemy, starting his attack just before the enemies attack hits. Then it will block the hit and continue with the attack. Power attacks should also be able to be chambered by normal attacks and vise versa. So it involves reflexes and selecting the right attack.

To make counter-chambering, i.e. chambering the attack that just chambered your own attack, a bit harder, an attack changes its direction after chambering, according to the players movement at the moment the player chambers the enemy attack.

Cambering is obviously something that only skilled players can utilize, but I feel this one action and the new attacks significantly increases player freedom and combat depth, without making combat controls any harder and essentially letting player still play the way they want.

The concept of chambering is actually taken from the fighting game Mordhau and was changed to fit my combat suggestion.