The Mana World Forums

I was talking in channel about strategy in game. In normal MMORG games, 2 fighters in combat is just. each player click over the enemy and wait to see, the dices rolling over the the table to choose who is winner.

For sword class players this isn't very fun.

I have thinked in combat manauvers to solve this problem.

Every combat manauver should have a new sprite (not attack sprite), just stand sprite, to enemy know which strategy they are using (simmilar to sword fencing positions). If the creation of attack sprites is possible, should be very nice (and fun), see it. Hell.. why only mages have good sprites and magic animation? ;-P

I have think in some manauvers. I will explain 8 (to resamble the magic tree).

* Defend - you stay in defensive position reducing your attack damage, but high your defense. Graphic: Shield at front of body, sword at side of shield. Body pending back. Effect: +5 Defense, Double Shield Defense. -10% attack speed and attack sucess, -50% attack damage.
* Thrust - You attack goes longer than normal, giving you some chance to attack first (against wapons of same size). Graphic: Shield slightly opened, weapon forward pointing the enemy. Effect: -5 Defense, +5 attack, +2 attack range.
* Bash - You open your defense to give a big blow. Graphic: shield down, you raise your weapon and the body is slightly curved back to give a bigger attack. Effect: -50% defense, +200% damage. Reduces speed to the next attack.
* Charge - It's a run and atack manauver. Graphic: Running with weapon drawn. Effect: -10 defense, +10% attack, enemy defense -10%,
* Stun - Attack specific points to cause pain (not damage). Graphic: Weapon near body, to allow a more precise attack. Effect: -50% damage, cause stun.
* Disarm - You attack enemy weapon and arms, trying to disarm it. Graphic: Same as stun. Effect: -50% damage, can drop weapon, cause penalty in next enemy attack.
* Cross weapons - Try to engage enemy weapons. Graphic: Body forward and sword slightly forward. Shield at side. Effect: when engaged in cross swords, no attack can be delivered with the weapon. Should happen a challenge of STR+WeaponSkill of both fighters, the winner delivery the next blow. To begin this manauver the charactes should be near (max. 1 tile away)
* WhirlWind - Turn fighter in a blade fury. Attacking all around. Graphic: Player rolling with swords. Effect: Attack all near enemies. +100% damage, -30% defense.

This should be put as spells for fighters. Spending Mana. And giving XP for that too

Ideas

I don't know if you've played SoM, but the free maneuvering system they used to handle combat will probably be what we use too, which gives us alot of flexibility already. I like the idea of different stances and such, but I think some of them are a bit unecessary. If you could get the list down to about 4 options, that would work best.

I don't think they should cost mana to use, but each one could have a related skill that goes up as it is used more frequently.

Sounds interesting, but I agree with Kyokai--eight is a few too many. Bear in mind that, for every new position the player adopts, new spirtes for every wearable or wieldable item must also be created. Also, for combat effectiveness in real-time, all of those maneuvers would have to be hotkeyed, which means more confusing controls. A variety of stances would work better in a turn-based combat system.

btw ...

i think we should implent these "mega-super-flying-around-charged-attack" like we now from som too.. or at least sth. simillar to that

maci wrote:btw ...

i think we should implent these "mega-super-flying-around-charged-attack" like we now from som too.. or at least sth. simillar to that

I do plan on including that.

Not exactly in the same manner, I hope?

One of the big reasons I never actually finished SoM was that certain aspects of it's combat system irritated me. The "charge up" system I didn't really have a problem with (on its own, anyway), but the "cooldown time" function I thought was very poorly implemented. A gradiated cooldown (your attacks gradually returned to full strength) would have been a lot more playable, in my opinion.

Oh yeah, and on this subject; please, please don't use the same "sprint cooldown" SoM did. That was just rediculous and highly unrealistic.

hmm i liked this function in tmw .. its normal that after you attacked someone you have to wait a few seconds to attack again with full power ..

Well, if you mean it's realistic, no, it really isn't; a trained fighter is able to attack at full power several times in a second. But, for the purposes of gameplay, realistic combat wouldn't work.

Basically, what I was saying in the above post is that with such a system, the cooldown needs to be gradiated. Simplified example: say my sword attack, at full power, hits for 30.
In a pure SoM-style system,if I attack...(assuming a 2 second cooldown)
0.5 sec after attacking: 5 damage
0.7 sec after attacking: 5 damage
1.0 sec after attacking: 5 damage
1.9 sec after attacking: 5 damage
2.0 sec after attacking: 30 damage

In the system I'm advocating, if I attack...
0.5 sec after attacking: 8 damage
0.7 sec after attacking: 11 damage
1.0 sec after attacking: 15 damage
1.9 sec after attacking: 28 damage
2.0 sec after attacking: 30 damage

I think that would add a slight dash more realism to the combat, and make it a bit more fun.

well maybe but as far as i remeber the SoM stlye was like

0.5 sec after attacking: 8 damage
0.7 sec after attacking: 11 damage
1.0 sec after attacking: 15 damage
1.9 sec after attacking: 28 damage
2.0 sec after attacking: 30 damage

maybe i am wrong

And as I've suggested a few times before: combos should be introduced and player definable (the number of the consequate keys should be limited per skill level, but the combinations themselves should be definable).

Rotonen: That would be cool.

Maci: Nope. I've been playing my SoM ROM recently; until the little "ding," you hardly do any damage at all. Even if the little meter says 100% when you strike, if that ding hasn't happened yet, your attack is basically worthless.

It's easy enough to do, and I don't see why not gradiate.
I'll request that it gets put in along with the charge bar.

I don't necessarily think the running was realistic. However, if you can run forever in towns, that's fine. In the field, you need a limit so you can't just zip away from the mobs when a fight gets too tough.

Combo idea is really good too.

Cooldown graduation is needed. And we should have different cooldown times.

If I have 100 dex my cooldown should not be the same of a char with 10 dex.

Reduce tatical manauvers to four, it's good too. I will do that.

Best Regards

Stat-differentiated cooldown times: I agree.

In terms of running, my favorite system is Diablo 2. You've got your stamina bar, that gradually runs out while you dash (it doesn't run out in towns, and how long it takes depends on your stats), and replenishes at the same rate whenever you're not dashing. Unless the bar is entirely empty, you can keep dashing (and you can turn while dashing, which is definately needed) until it's gone. Trying to dash while the bar is empty results in walking as normal, but the dash bar won't refill until you stop trying to dash. Now, Diablo lets you dash for fairly rediculous lengths of time, but a shortened version of the same system could be really good for us.

Other ideas I had in terms of cooldown:
*Separate cooldown meters for dashing, magic, and attacks
*Regular attacks cooldown quicker than charge attacks
*Hardline cooldown for magic--if you try to cast before you've "recharged" from the last spell, the spell fails (but still consumes the mana)

well, we start working on the stamina bar tommorrow. These are my initial thoughts:

- 1 bar controls everything.
- you don't have gradiated recovery time (this is too much work for the server, our programmers told me, sorry Talaroc )
- Magic has a warmup time of 3 seconds, so it takes longer than a normal attack.
- you can charge up extra bars of stamina to do a strong attack or a series of powerful attacks.

any other points?