Melee System Overhaul More in depth attacks

[Creamy_Goodness]

So as we all know melee currently is pretty to the point, just press the direction to attack that creature. I believe melee could be improved by implementing a system of Being able to choose what part of the zombie you want to attack with your melee weapon (Possibly also ranged If it gets in game)

This would allow you to,
Take off legs, slowing monsters (Minor-Medium HP lmb)(Medium accuracy to hit)
Take off arms making the monster less accurate / less damage / less speedy attacks (Minor HP limb)(Medium accuracy to hit)
Attacking Torso can either do nothing (or have a change to knock back / stun?) (Highest HP / Highest Accuracy to hit)
Attacking Head will allow possible decapitation (Death) on crit plus deal exceptional damage compared to other parts of body (Medium HP / lowest accuracy)

Additionally, I feel like slashing, piercing, bashing weapons lack their own zest and feel. (I am a bit new to the game so these might already be implemented and I will edit this out)

Bashing should have a change to stun the region being hit or increased knockback (Possibly on crit)
Piercing Should have increased chance to Bleed region being hit ( Possibly on crit)
Slashing should have a chance on crit to slice off the region being hit

What do you guys think about it? I would love to see a new indepth melee system implemented as it is my favorite way of killing zombies, Well besides setting a car on fire while it ghosts into town with a trunk full of explosives…

[Blaze]

Well… It’s not bad, but zombies as they are now die too quickly for a system like this to reap the benefits of its coding time.

I say save this for multi-tile monsters and flesh out martial arts more. A controllable MA attack system would accomplish the same and already has a built foundation.

[FunsizeNinja123]

It would require too much coding.

I know a lot of us want a DF style combat, but coding is a bitch.

[Creamy_Goodness]

im thinking this system would be good for large units, as well as tedious units you wish not to engage, Chopping a tanks arm off would greatly benefit , or lobbing some zombie dog / moose legs, Fucking moose…

[Aluminumfoil]

[quote=“FunsizeNinja123, post:3, topic:5775”]It would require too much coding.

I know a lot of us want a DF style combat, but coding is a bitch.[/quote]

I don’t know much about cata-code, but if it’s possible to have martial arts that work on melee weapons as well as unarmed attacks, a lot of the options in the OP could be kitbashed as martial arts (henceforth Martial Arts in Name Only, MANO) that apply status effects on the target and change the player’s attack stats. The “Leg attack” MANO could have a chance to slow the target but reduce the player’s damage, the “Arm attack” MANO could have a chance to weaken the opponent’s attack rating but reduce the player’s accuracy and damage, the “head attack” MANO could have a chance to do extra damage, but severely reduce the player’s accuracy, and so on. Like other martial arts, MANOs could be learned from skill books that are locked until the player reaches suitable Melee Skill.

Grant you, this would run into weirdness against enemies that don’t have conventional body parts, hitting snakes in the leg, stabbing triffids in the head, and slashing the arms of blobs…

If martial arts are coded such as to be unarmed only, then never-mind me!

[Blaze]

The latest experimental has three weapon styles and Krav Maga also gives a slight bonus to attacks with weapons. Furthermore, items have their own martial arts techniques specific to them.

So MA can work with weapons as well as unarmed.

[grisamentum]

Honestly I think it would be better if we completely ditched traditional roguelike melee combat (mash your guy in to the other guys) and did something more movement-based, like Hoplite.

That way we could avoid the entire window/shrub/chokepoint problem.

I mean let’s face it. No matter what we do, traditional roguelike melee combat boils down to:

1. kite things
2. use chokepoints
3. spam a movement button until all things are dead

[i2amroy]

Once we get a working fatigue system things might get a bit more complicated on that front.

[vultures]

Since we already play the game filled with Crawlers (Zs, not the Dungeon ones), do you also think this is the right time and place to discuss crippling of foes?

Speaking of melee, it could get more interesting with certain improvements over movement, not just plain fatigue. Less agile characters could get stuck in rubbles and wrecks, trip on bushes and slam their noses from getting stewpid with those hedges near the houses. But mostly, to be honest, thinking here about the mindless undead and their wobbling over rusted, burnt-out vehicles. It just screams Critical Hits.

[kevin.granade]

I agree with the problem statement and the overall goal, but disagree with the specifics.
Instead of entering the tarpit of defining limbs for all the monsters so you can target them to get specific effects, it’d be much simpler to go straight to the effects.
Here’s the official word on the subject.

Issue: Melee Combat Overhaul

tl’dr: instead of “target leg to slow”, just skip straight to “attack to cripple”, instead of “attack torso for a chance of knockback”, just do “do a knockback attack”.
The code would figure out how to describe it in a nice way, but what you put into the system is what you want to happen.

[uncle.kat]

You mean like this?

[Creamy_Goodness]

Haha yes dwarf fortress has a very nice description of whats going on, But im just suggesting a sort of fallout style attack system, with kind of the same cripple system, only I want them to be lobbed off

Not too fallout ish, like when you attack something, a looting like window would pop up and let you select which body part then you attack

However I agree with kevin, a nice cripple melee, weak shot melee system would work just as well, just need something besides auto attack

[uncle.kat]

While Dorf Fort has an amazingly descriptive combat system, it doesn’t seem too realistic. I mean, 'tis but a scratch and one could easily manage with a cut off limb. Though it’s more fun this way, I like to spend hours on the Arena, fighting monsters (or watching them fight), tearing apart their lower body parts, tearing them apart and then reanimating their cut off arms. I’d love to see some RL interpretation of Riddle of Steel though.

As for Cataclysm - aimed attacks would be a great idea, but as an Dorf Fort’y “Aimed Attack” move. Because I’d rather swingitty swooty my impro crowbar at that undead booty most of the time. It’s a rare occasion of dealing with a Fast Zombie when I’d love to break his legs and just strut away hastily to my hideout, carrying my fresh loot inside my Cross-Pocket Inventory Realm.

[StarsonLovett]

THIS IS THE GREATEST IDEA EVER!! This has got to be the best idea for this game! Because if you watch the walking dead,(probably the third season), then you will see that they always aim for the head ON PURPOSE!!! because any dumbass knows to hit zombies in the head for a 1 shot kill, but in Cata, you just randomly keep on hitting it and getting bitten by the first zombie and dying from infection. Of course even though if you aim for the head with this update you still cant go agianst multiple zombies. But yeah THIS WOULD MAKE THE GAME SOOOO MUCH BETTER!!!

[grisamentum]

[quote=“uncle.kat, post:11, topic:5775”]You mean like this?

-snip-[/quote]

Yeah… or this:

Modeling individual body parts is silly and a lot of work. It’s better to have good gameplay than a foolish attempt at simulating real body parts.

[Aluminumfoil]

THIS IS THE GREATEST IDEA EVER!! This has got to be the best idea for this game! Because if you watch the walking dead,(probably the third season), then you will see that they always aim for the head ON PURPOSE!!! because any dumbass knows to hit zombies in the head for a 1 shot kill, but in Cata, you just randomly keep on hitting it and getting bitten by the first zombie and dying from infection. Of course even though if you aim for the head with this update you still cant go agianst multiple zombies. But yeah THIS WOULD MAKE THE GAME SOOOO MUCH BETTER!!!

Catazombies aren’t killed by one shot to the head. Headshots just do more damage.

[FunsizeNinja123]

Again, if this ever gets added, it will take a lonnnggg while.

[Xelanthol]

Yeah with the number of enemies in cata I don’t think the time and energy put into coding limbs would be worth it, for anyone. You’d end up doing the same thing as we do now anyway because combat wasn’t build around that idea. I think 100% the way to go would just be to have nicely described effects that would describe what happened.

Hell, you could even cheat a little by just adding limb tags for the purpose of describing certain things.

Crippling Injury that slows: Does creature HAVE_LEG or HAVE_CRAWLERS or HAVE_SLITHERS or HAVE_WING (or however coding actually works)

“You [action sensitive word based on weapon, preferably a few of these, lets go with 'slash] through the [LIMB_TAGTHING], crippling the [creaturename]'s movement!”, and reduce the creatures speed. To balance this sort of thing, it would take more “action points” or whatever it is, because you need to focus and line up your attacks.