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Advanced Combat System?
Systran
Member Posts: 105
The topic a few below this one was discussing how auto-combat is getting old, yada yada yada, and it just brought this to my mind. Some were discussing specific body part targeting and so on. Is there any way to have a more advanced combat system that allows actual strategy for a person to win a battle? Granted this topic may be a little too far out there and I don't have any specific ideas (I'm just throwing it out here for discussion
) but I would like to see some combat where it takes actual Player Skill as opposed to just quality or level of character (although these obviously have to matter to a specific extent). I'm interested to hear some feedback tho. 
Comments
I think part of that could be achieved with a stance system similar to Matrix Online. You'd have different types of stances such as Low Offense, High Offense, Defensive, Retreat, Throw...etc. You get the idea I hope.
That still wouldbt very active, in my opinion MxO's combat is just an even slower auto-attack sstem with better animations. Something like DDO (UXO had a really interesting system too) mixed with Age of Conan would be a step in the right direction in my opinion,
I somehow doubt that this will have real-time combat like those two. My whole idea is just having different stances that work for better or worse for different attacks. Add to that the usual active combat skills and I think it would be an improvement.
That still wouldbt very active, in my opinion MxO's combat is just an even slower auto-attack sstem with better animations. Something like DDO (UXO had a really interesting system too) mixed with Age of Conan would be a step in the right direction in my opinion,
I'm not familiar with DDO or UXO, or Age of Conan for that matter. What are their combat systems like?
A stance system is possible, considering their other game, Gemstone IV, has stances. They don't work in the way you have described though.
Defensive stance (50% attack, 50% attack-to-defense) causes you to use as much of your attack strength as possible as defense strength, warding off most attacks. Offensive stance (100% attack, 0% attack-to-defense) causes you to ignore your defense entirely so you can beat on the enemy as hard as you can.
Well what of controls to raise, lower shield, thrust, parry etc? Was probably all discussed below, not sure. To actually react to your opponent in real time, and not have a dice do it for you.
There has to be a point where it gets so in-depth that it alienates a lot of less technique savy players. Is probably why the Diablo style point and click is tried and true. But yeah, a big ol' change would be nice hehe.
This is looking fantastic. Drawing where your spells cast, combo moves etc. Am excited to say the least.
"(The) Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude." - George W Bush.
Oh. My. God.
Unfortuantely, real-time details like where your shield is... is beyond the the basic realm of possibility for an MMORPG. The latency, in the best of circumstances, is slower than reaction speeds need to be. Multiply this by lots of people in combat in a given melee, and it's a technical issue that has no immediate resolution (Internet 2 maybe?).
So the dice will sweat the details. But that still gives us a huge amount of options that you can work with for the tactical side of combat. Since most MMORPGs have very little tactics, it's not going to be terribly difficult to improve on what's there now.
-- David
I guess I didn't really consider the latency factor. Well, if nothing else I'd still like to see a change. Don't disappoint me Dave!!
Ugh, of course... *painful memories of Horizons, of being hit and killed by melee when the mob is clearly 50m behind you*... That's why you're the boss and we're the pleds. All rational and smart n stuff... *grins*
Well, it seems skills will be somewhat customisable? Tactics in fights involving combos with teammates and placement of spells?
Well readers, what's some far out ideas you've had for really mixing up combat in an MMO? We have the wonderful Devs' ears, so let's use em! *grins*
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Personally, I am a big one for immersion, to both a positive and negative affect. Have you got plans to impliment some form of reactionary combat at all? Like a 'pre-warning' icon next to the mob's name that shows in 1-2 sec the mob will attack/heal/defend/run/etc, thus somewhat countering peoples' ping issues, but setting you up to retaliate a lot more intuitively?
Hell, this 'pre-warning' could even be a skill that you can develop, Intuition, thus giving you a stronger retaliation at the expense of other skills or somewhat. But then again I don't know how your skill system will work
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I am curious about Craft in HJ though. Do you have any ideas for it or have implimented anything? I have a tonne of ideas there too! ;P
Ok, time to stop buggin' the Devs. Thanks again guys.
"(The) Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude." - George W Bush.
Oh. My. God.