Messages

1

General / Re: Dev Blog #5 Combat

« on: March 20, 2016, 03:25:52 pm »

I'm merely thinking how will all this stances and directions work in a 50v05 fuckfest, so many random things and fails the game won't be fun for me. Warbands simplicity worked perfecty in these scenatios.

I think the wording just seems a bit more confusing. There appears to be less complexity here than warband, complexity being how many things you can do at once.  At any given point you can only attack in 3 directions while in a stance, further if you aren't even doing anything and are in the same stance you will passively block it by doing nothing as long as you mirror their stance.  So really at most all you have to do is pick from 4 directions and be in that stance, just like warband, except you should have more time to recognize the stance hopefully.

When you want to try to do the 'good' block you still only have 3 directions to pick from asa the swing is coming in. So objectively speaking it should be easier to block in melee than warband. It probably depends on how quickly you can go from stance to stance though.

I was just thinking, I wonder if you can do something like keep an upper-left attack chambered constantly so you can't tell if i'm in left or upper stance, so can't effectively block it. Not really sure how the diagonals map out in the block system though.

I just think when they talk about the system it sounds scarier than it appears since 'stance' is usually something in a game that implies wildly different attacks, where here it actually is limiting what you can do more than enabling more options.

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General / Re: Dev Blog #5 Combat

« on: March 03, 2016, 06:00:28 pm »

Okay now I'm spamming but I thought of some questions, and probably the answer will all be yes, but thought I would ask.

- Attack interrupts.  Is this the m&b way, full interrupt when you hit, so you basically race to 'first touch' of the weapon? Or the chiv way, only interrupt on specific phases of a swing?

- Weapon sweet spots, are you guys deadening the front/back damage of a swing?

I think if you don't do this, animations get exploited to make weapons hit faster.  Chiv had a problem with this because when you looked at the ground the model's upper torso bent in half, this effectively brought the start of polearm overhead swings closer to the ground such that they would hit as soon as an overhead attack came out. WOTR same deal with slashing people standing 90 degrees left of you on horizontal swings.

Essentially it made it optimal to be looking at the ground or hitting people behind you, there was no point to actually looking at your opponent.

I guess this can also be controlled with very careful animation placement too but that seems a lot harder to do. 

- Any type of weapon collision planned, eg if we both swing at the same time at the space in front of us? I think this is probably unrealistic given the animation work and collision detection that has to go on for it, but was wondering.

- Chamber blocks or some similar mechanic? Doesn't seem to fit what is there now at first thought but who knows. It's obviously a mechanic that confused people a lot.

- When you attack can you hold/delay the release of the swing? If so any effects for doing so? I liked m&b's short little 'golf swing' like mechanic, where as viking's longer held strike seemed to defeat the purpose of ever switching directions, it gave people plenty of time to get the correct block.

- Is there some sort of stunning when you are blocked? It seems so, or is that just a property of you getting your stance changed + stance change time before you can attack back, or there is a block stun?

Okay, I think that's all I can think of for now.

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General / Re: Dev Blog #5 Combat

« on: March 03, 2016, 05:27:58 pm »

I think the whole thing is great really, I think it is crazy to see what CRPG turned into from a group of guys that started from basically just playing some game on the internet, and how they kept everything up and running for so long. Then taking the step to pack up and move to different countries just to work on this is huge, not something I'm sure I would be able to have done myself at all. I really hope they do well with it, this is a tough genera to crack.

I think all the melee games after warband failed to have longevity because none of the developers actually understood the mechanics of warband and the iterations it went through, so they made a lot of the same mistakes that were in it early on. The crpg guys here obviously know warband and have been trying to mess with the engine and combat mechanics in crpg for years, so it's no surprise to see that what they are coming up with is something different yet understanding the realities of playing and controlling a game.

I hope next year or the year after I'll be happily playing this game and bannerlord getting pwned by everybody again!

4

General / Re: Dev Blog #5 Combat

« on: March 02, 2016, 10:44:36 pm »

Just saw the video and it looks really great. I've always thought in my head with warband, how in the world do you keep direction based melee attacks/blocks and eliminate the pretty horrible animation feint spam, and bam, here you go.

The more I kick the system around in my head the more I think you have a really great base here. Sure, the numbers will have to get tweaked around and all that like any game, but the idea of the mechanics feel solid.

I like that switching stances takes time and it is controlled, meaning you can make it take more or less time depending on the feel you are going for. I think it is really nice to have 8 attack directions yet cover them with 4 passive stances, but you have to risk to get the perfect block. I thought having the 360 directions blocking/attacking just added complexity and no depth, but this system seems nip that in the bud.


I was going to be concerned that it might be too easy to block in time, but you guys mentioned there is a feint mechanic, and really to feint you change stances, then attack, so it's just adding in some latency to changing directions, which doesn't have to be that much at all.

The stance switch time might be everything really, I can see the idea of needing to balance your need to swing the correct direction vs the stance the opponent is using and when to mirror them or go off their stance. The time you have to flow from one stance to the other will determine if you have to passively wait for them or can start leading them in a stance switch so they'll have to follow to block you or get hit.

That speed will determine how well you can defend multiple opponents, if you have a long time to stop stances you need that much more space between your opponents. I mean in warband you only beat multiple opponents by managing how many can attack you at once and how far away they are, two good players that can swing simultaneously will get you fast, but if you can time it so you parry one, then the other, with enough time to adjust your block, you are good. You should be able to do the same here, though one of those blocks might just be a passive rather than a good active one due to time, giving a bigger stamina penalty.

Speaking of which, I think the stamina you have in seems like it's just going to be your secondary resource manager. Your 'special abilities' are sprints, lunges and whatever else they add. It seems like the more tired you get the less special abilities you have, but you should be able to move around and swing just like a normal player through most fighting, meaning if you have good swordwork/blocking, you should be fine in a low stamina state. That doesn't sound too bad to me and might add another interesting layer to things.

For sprinting, I really like the warband way, maybe not 100% but the idea of having to hold w for 3 seconds while doing nothing else.  In war of the roses alpha they had shift sprinting at will basically, and you'd end up playing out a combat with a person at full sprint all the time, like fighter planes. It was like, either you decide to make the movement speed that high, or just make it so you can't do it reasonably in combat.

 I like the idea of sprint as a 'transport' just a way to go from fight to fight, but not being a huge factor in the fight itself, let us work out weapon ranges from a semi constant movement speed rather than a constantly changing threat range.

All in all I think the game is looking great and heading in really positive direction with the combat. It feels much more refined and thought out than the 360 combat from before.