Developers Corner

Hi mates

I am like many other here, i have an idea for an mmo and with all that comes with it, and i have given the combat of the game alot of thought for some time, and i want to present it to you, to see if its something the heartless community is interrested in, if its entirely possible to make in the first place and just bits and peices of your oppinion entirely, i cannot start my glorious contest before i have asked the ppl around these forums.

here goes, please tell me you oppinion as i would need it for further development, i cant use my own thoughts, it would only make a game to fit me and i strive to get to most players.

The original idea started as a button pressing abillity game like world of warcraft (handy that)

I took old Blizzards idea as I heard many ppl complained that, wow was not a "player skill based game"

so i went, watched some sword fighting moves, Lord of rings / pirates of cab. / and many others, to create a system that would be cool, in my oppinion is a game more of a interractive movie in basic terms

to attack u have them 3 buttons here, to direct attacks in each directions, but mainly facing your target u have selected using ur mouse.

and parrys aswell

need another move yet.

foil: an attack that tries to attack a person before their attack reaches you.  this has a chance of interupting the enemies attack before it reaches you(you do normal attack damage if it hits) but if the enemy attack does reach you you take twice as much damage from their attack.   basically 33% chance for your attack to hit and the enemy attack doing nothing, 33% of you hitting your enemy and taking double damage from their attack, and 33% that your attack does nothing and you take double damage.

While it might go a bit against the no randomness of current skills.  knowing when to use this move takes a lot of consideration.   and it also provides a way to counter gank squads/gankers if you have a balanced damage and healing(in this case slow healing no potions no healers) system.   basically with a slow healing system it is a game of don't get hit you have more than enough tools to ensure that.   basically if someone decides to go to a starter area they will get damaged if people use this against them, which is it's primary purpose. 

edit: it also serves as a way to gamble yourself back into a fight.  especially in a case of you being to easy to read.

I came up with a system very much like this,

I like the concept but it might be too buttony, if that is a word, same problem I had.

What could help, and this is like what I did, is to make it instead of a button for attack right, just make an attack button and make it sensitive to the directionality of the mouse relative to the target.  Meaning to attack right just put the mouse on the right side of the target and press attack. parry/block could work the same way except it would now be the direction of the mouse relative to your character.

Dodge could work similar to attack, a left or right or backwards dodge could be done with a single dodge button and a movement key WSAD.

Oh and I think revengeful attack would sound better if it were called vengeful attack.

I like these ideas very much so, especially the grab bit.

I wrote up my idea, if you find it useful, just the basic controls, it is post #4

I like the concept, they are fun ideas, but the problems as I see them are

(1) Lag, if you are trying to react to what your opponent is doing, only the most lag free people will play the game, others will just die constantly and quit.  The way to solve this is to have slower animations that have more of a window to react to.  This too however would cause a lot of people to quit because combat is too slow or "it's all just about countering my enemy" or "it's just dumb luck, you chose left and I chose block middle."

(2) Movement.  Remember in PvP people don't just stand there, they are moving all around holding down their forward key and tapping strafe, left, right, jumping, turning, controlling the camera, etc.  So if they are holding down at least one key and have their fingers ready to move other directions, it's not easy for most people to then try and hit one of 6 or 8 other keys for a specific area to attack.  The solution to this would be a complex mouse or joystick that had many buttons set up nicely for this kind of game, but most computer users don't want to go buy more stuff.  So if you could make the left mouse button do one kind of attack (or left side), and the right do another (right side), then have some toggle key for high/low and parry/attack it might be ok but pretty limited due to controlling movement / targeting / camera / specific attack areas / specialized skills all at once.

Thak you for replys so far

and btw. i have conserned myself about the lag and yes, it will be fucking laggy,

and gameplay wil rely on luck form each player toanother i wonder if it is not luck to win a fight anyway?

and about the point from cactuasmanx, well belive it or not, i thought of the exactly same at first, but  i was not found of it, i would feel it anoying to have a bigger button to press in them situations, but hwo knows i have low imaginary skil ^^ isnt it whats in age of conan ?

and to them points from kez95 about standing still in pvp, the attacks should be disgined to make the char. move forward, ever played Dynasty warriors 3-4-5 ? that much like, its been a great inspiration source.

Originally posted by Thunderhead

and about the point from cactuasmanx, well belive it or not, i thought of the exactly same at first, but  i was not found of it, i would feel it anoying to have a bigger button to press in them situations, but hwo knows i have low imaginary skil ^^ isnt it whats in age of conan ?

 

Actually AoC uses multiple buttons for different directions, I think they have six.

Basically the difference with mouse control is that you only need one attack button and one defense button, after you select a target you just move the reticule relative to the target to attack from different directions, you could also add high or low versions if you wanted.

And yeah I agree, melee attacks should propel the character forward a bit, or to the side if they are moving that way.

Surprised this hasn't popped up: how would you balance melee vs. ranged character fights?

I have some ideas inspired by games like Smash Bros. (normal shield + Fox's deflector) that could do the trick, but I'm not going to take the time to explain my highly flawed theories because their content can be easily summarized as a "universal deflector shield".

Besides, it's better to catch inspiration from something cool and use your own imagination to improve it than to use someone else's constrained rule set.

Good point about balancing melee and ranged ^^^

I guess it really depends on your setting,

For a fantasy game you have shields, which I think would work well against ranged weapons and magic alike.  You could do magical shields too.

Or for Sci-fi you could have the universal deflector made from photons or something like that.

In my little imaginary world that I made for a MMOG concept that I will never make, I used a couple of ways to balance melee and ranged.

Mobility, I think ranged attackers cannot run and shoot, they can walk fast but running would throw their aim off, so when they shoot they slow down.  Likewise melee fighters can run and still attack, I also give them abilities like lunge to close distances.

When shooting a weapon aim isn't perfect, ranged weapons can miss.  But melee doesn't, as long as you are close enough and they do not dodge, block or go out of range then you always hit them.

Melee does more damage than ranged.

Defense, since my idea isn't fantasy or sci-fi I can't use magical or photon shields, but I do have ballistics and riot shields, used to block melee and ranged, cover so they can't shoot you through walls or trees, stealth to try and sneak up on people, and when they get close you can grab/shove people to throw them off balance and keep them from attacking you, as well as knockdown and stun. And characters should always be able to do an anticipatory dodge to throw a ranged attacker's aim off.

Also I didn't design my idea with the concept of pure melee characters in mind, without some ranged ability you are not going to do well, likewise pure ranged isn't good either, if you can't defend yourself in close quarters you will die easy.