Opportunity based melee attack system

[Michi]

I love everything I am reading here, because as a few of you have mentioned, combat is not very nuanced right now.

My only insight comes from the existing special attacks some weapons have combined with what I have seen from the martial arts stuff.

Basically, I am making one choice. What weapon am I using - does it have some useful special effects, and does it interact with the martial arts style. After that, the game takes over, and I dont know about everyone else, I don’t even look at eh scrolling text to see if I did a fast strike or a block or whatever, I just keep an eye on my health and if the mob died.

Having the player be able to make choices right before a fight and during the fight would make the combat more interesting, whereas adding more possibilities solely controlled by the AI without meaningful interaction by the player won’t add a lot to the current system, IMHO. Just more text to scroll by during combat. At the same time, I definitely don’t want something that would being overly cumbersome when I need to, say, clear out a school.

The stances idea is step towards player interactivity, but I see people choosing offense 90% of the time, and then defense when stamina is down and no chance of running away.

[Coolthulhu]

Having the player be able to make choices right before a fight and during the fight would make the combat more interesting, whereas adding more possibilities solely controlled by the AI without meaningful interaction by the player won’t add a lot to the current system, IMHO.

Even the AI possibilities would actually add a lot, though not directly during the fight but rather during preparations.
Choices such as leaving a free hand vs. 2h weapon, lighter armor for more special attacks or heavier for more reckless weapon attacks, perception for special effects or dexterity/strength for pure damage.
Then, during fight, those choices would influence the fighting style: kiting, standing and smashing, getting 3 zombies lined up for area attacks.

If we want something more complex, I’d consider adding Sil-like conditional attacks on movement. For example, a martial art could have a free sweep when moving past a zombie, a hard punch executed only after moving towards target (this one would combo nicely with stacking bonus, so that you’d move from zed to zed only to keep executing charge punches), or a prepared attack against first approaching target in given turn.

I’d rather avoid player choice being made mostly through mode switching and specific commands, because that’s UI stuff and could get tedious fast.
Once in a while would be fine, but I’d prefer to keep it from turning into “go offense until tired, go defense on retreat, go offense until tired”. It would be less bad to keep it all offense all the time to be honest.

Examples of good choices I see:

[ul][li]The aforementioned charge attack, attack in passing, attack when disengaging and prepared attack[/li]
[li]Attack that can be executed only after not attacking for a turn[/li]
[li]Penalty applied to every target you move past (ie. start and end movement adjacent to)[/li]
[li]A group attack when you and a NPC hit the same target. Or possibly you and a dog.[/li]
[li]Attack that requires the target to have a wall behind it[/li]
[li]Other terrain dependent attacks - curbstomping[/li][/ul]

Anything that doesn’t require the player to say “I want to do exactly that” instead of “I know there is a smart thing to do here, do that”.

[kevin.granade]

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:22, topic:13457”]Even the AI possibilities would actually add a lot, though not directly during the fight but rather during preparations.
Choices such as leaving a free hand vs. 2h weapon, lighter armor for more special attacks or heavier for more reckless weapon attacks, perception for special effects or dexterity/strength for pure damage.
Then, during fight, those choices would influence the fighting style: kiting, standing and smashing, getting 3 zombies lined up for area attacks.[/quote]
This goes far beyond the damage over time evaluation you were talking about, and starts evaluating the player’s health and armor, as well as the attack potential of nearby enemies. This is way too much AI.

If we want something more complex, I’d consider adding Sil-like conditional attacks on movement. For example, a martial art could have a free sweep when moving past a zombie, a hard punch executed only after moving towards target (this one would combo nicely with stacking bonus, so that you’d move from zed to zed only to keep executing charge punches), or a prepared attack against first approaching target in given turn.

That kind of thing is attractive when your goal is to build an immersive fighting system, but it’s just another form of micro-management, you still have to do specific things to trigger your special attacks. It also ends up driving the combat system, because options like delay, cripple, evade don’t necessarily map well to a movement-based system like that.

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:22, topic:13457”]I’d rather avoid player choice being made mostly through mode switching and specific commands, because that’s UI stuff and could get tedious fast.
Once in a while would be fine, but I’d prefer to keep it from turning into “go offense until tired, go defense on retreat, go offense until tired”. It would be less bad to keep it all offense all the time to be honest.[/quote]
I agree that the frequency of adjustments needs to be low, and for the vast majority of encounters (routine one where you’re in no real danger, and even non-routine encounters where you can defeat each opponent before being attacked by a new one), you would just keep it at damage-offense, but I want there to be options for when you are dealing with too many opponents, or need to retreat from an encounter, and when to switch from offense to defense, or when to use tactical options like delay or crippling attacks.

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:22, topic:13457”]Examples of good choices I see:

[ul][li]The aforementioned charge attack, attack in passing, attack when disengaging and prepared attack[/li]
[li]Attack that can be executed only after not attacking for a turn[/li]
[li]Penalty applied to every target you move past (ie. start and end movement adjacent to)[/li]
[li]A group attack when you and a NPC hit the same target. Or possibly you and a dog.[/li]
[li]Attack that requires the target to have a wall behind it[/li]
[li]Other terrain dependent attacks - curbstomping[/li][/ul][/quote]
Again, this kind of thing is immersive, but it can’t change the kind of attack being made, because if they do, it risks having players accidentally trigger suboptimal attacks that can get them killed.
Fundamentally, if there is a really interesting difference between attack types, the decision to use one or the other MUST be explicit.

Anything that doesn’t require the player to say “I want to do exactly that” instead of “I know there is a smart thing to do here, do that”.

Attack goals have the property you’re asking for, you’re asking for a general class of behaviors, not a specific one.

[Rivet]

Worth the effort?

Very worth the effort.

[Coolthulhu]

This goes far beyond the damage over time evaluation you were talking about, and starts evaluating the player’s health and armor, as well as the attack potential of nearby enemies. This is way too much AI.

I mean the player setting those up and AI only caring about what it can predict. For example, putting on a heavy armor would slow down all attacks by a flat amount, so fast attacks would suffer more than slow ones. This in turn would make the AI pick “huge axe slam” more often than “elbow strike”.

That kind of thing is attractive when your goal is to build an immersive fighting system, but it's just another form of micro-management, you still have to do specific things to trigger your special attacks.

Then scrap (or just “move back”) those that make it more tedious and just keep those which offer tactical advantages. For example, moving past a critter and executing a totally bland, regular, unbuffed attack for free (but full move price for moving) would not be any more micromanagement than regular combat with kiting - in fact less.
Still, I’d rather at least try to make it work than instantly going for manual selections on everything. Maybe it’s easier than it sounds?

It also ends up driving the combat system, because options like delay, cripple, evade don't necessarily map well to a movement-based system like that.

It would synergy with those pretty well: if you had free attacks on disengage, the evade option would push stuff back, while attack option would hurt things.

I want there to be options for when you are dealing with too many opponents, or need to retreat from an encounter, and when to switch from offense to defense, or when to use tactical options like delay or crippling attacks.

This should be treated as necessary evil and avoided where not necessary. For example, by limiting the number of modes and keeping them in the same menu as martial arts (as in, “offensive” would be a martial art).
Crippling, avoiding and delaying could easily be one mode (defensive).

Fundamentally, if there is a really interesting difference between attack types, the decision to use one or the other MUST be explicit.

To some degree yes, but a lot could be done by stretching the implicitness of them.
Combining with movement, involving pauses, depending on surroundings - in the end pure DPS should be reserved for endgame characters who can afford to stand around and mash tab.

[pisskop]

just putting it out there that tracking which way a critter is facing based on last movement direction or turning to do something (defend) would be nice.

and then we could add in things like light directions and back attacks and stealth

[kevin.granade]

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:23, topic:13457”]This goes far beyond the damage over time evaluation you were talking about, and starts evaluating the player’s health and armor, as well as the attack potential of nearby enemies. This is way too much AI.

I mean the player setting those up and AI only caring about what it can predict. For example, putting on a heavy armor would slow down all attacks by a flat amount, so fast attacks would suffer more than slow ones. This in turn would make the AI pick “huge axe slam” more often than “elbow strike”.[/quote]
What I ws reacting to was

heavier for more reckless weapon attacks

, which seems to indicate that more armor means “it’s ok to make reckless attacks”, which is fundamentally not something a system like this should be making. I guess you mean something like, “slower attacks will be impacted less by encumbrance, so as you add more armor they become more optimal”. If that’s the case I was just reading too much into your statement and there’s no problem.

Taking a step back, I want to reiterate that I think the overall plan is a good one for increasing variability of combat from both an effectiveness and narrative point of view, as well as adding strategic depth around equipment selection. My only concern is it leaves tactical depth behind if the primary goal of attacks is always damage.

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:25, topic:13457”]

That kind of thing is attractive when your goal is to build an immersive fighting system, but it’s just another form of micro-management, you still have to do specific things to trigger your special attacks.

Then scrap (or just “move back”) those that make it more tedious and just keep those which offer tactical advantages. For example, moving past a critter and executing a totally bland, regular, unbuffed attack for free (but full move price for moving) would not be any more micromanagement than regular combat with kiting - in fact less.
Still, I’d rather at least try to make it work than instantly going for manual selections on everything. Maybe it’s easier than it sounds?

It also ends up driving the combat system, because options like delay, cripple, evade don't necessarily map well to a movement-based system like that.

It would synergy with those pretty well: if you had free attacks on disengage, the evade option would push stuff back, while attack option would hurt things.[/quote]
Right, if you have both a goal set and movement-based modifiers, they will work just fine, I was pointing out that just a movement-based attack system doesn’t have a good way to specify flavors of attacks, so it needs something else to do that. Both would be ust fine.

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:25, topic:13457”]

I want there to be options for when you are dealing with too many opponents, or need to retreat from an encounter, and when to switch from offense to defense, or when to use tactical options like delay or crippling attacks.

This should be treated as necessary evil and avoided where not necessary. For example, by limiting the number of modes and keeping them in the same menu as martial arts (as in, “offensive” would be a martial art).
Crippling, avoiding and delaying could easily be one mode (defensive).[/quote]
I don’ think the goals as martial arts thing works, because that implies that martial arts are also goals, which is WAY too many of them. I’d prefer them to remain orthoganal, with styles augmenting the list of attacks one can make, and goals changing the evaluation function for attacks that are available.
While delaying and evading could be merged (minimal effort to neutralize enemies for short durations and forcing enemies to waste moves have the same outcomes), crippling would be different. IMO the minimal set of goals would be damage, cripple, delay. Aother fundamental attack type is move, but I’m not sure that can be handled the same way.

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:25, topic:13457”]

Fundamentally, if there is a really interesting difference between attack types, the decision to use one or the other MUST be explicit.

To some degree yes, but a lot could be done by stretching the implicitness of them.
Combining with movement, involving pauses, depending on surroundings - in the end pure DPS should be reserved for endgame characters who can afford to stand around and mash tab.[/quote]
So to clarify a few things, I’m only looking for ~3 goal settings, and this set of features or the goal setting thing could go in first, both IMO advance melee significantly.