Re: Melee: Battlegrounds Movement Discussion

[Falka]

Sounds like a regular day on eu1 to me.

Regular day on eu1? That's more like one blob chasing scratches of other team, which tries to run away as fast they can, everyone running in circle and so on. I don't say it's not enjoyable, but just doesn't give the feeling of participating in huge battle.

[Leshma]

Double tapping wasd could just result in a slightly larger than shoulder with hop in that direction.

Dislike double tapping so much, it is made for the likes of Qoray (remember that 'I no has macro' video). Don't think I've ever used roll since its introduction, too much hassle for the old hag like me.

Less Street Fighter controls, please.

[Xant]

"I don’t duck or dodge anybody" oh wait just gunna use this new 1 meter  dash and run away from being ganked.

How the fuck are you going to use a 1 meter dodge tied to stamina to run away from being ganked?

Dodges, dashes, pirouettes, whatever - that's what a good melee game needs to get on the next level (and not look retarded, everyone who sees Warband combat without trying it think it looks silly). Footwork is the most important skill in real life fighting, much more important than "blocking." There is no reason it couldn't be made to require skill in MBG as well, just like blocks.

[lombardsoup]

How the fuck are you going to use a 1 meter dodge tied to stamina to run away from being ganked?

Dodges, dashes, pirouettes, whatever - that's what a good melee game needs to get on the next level (and not look retarded, everyone who sees Warband combat without trying it think it looks silly). Footwork is the most important skill in real life fighting, much more important than "blocking." There is no reason it couldn't be made to require skill in MBG as well, just like blocks.

People will complain about kiting and ask for a nerf to dodge.  You might as well not even bother implementing it if that's going to be the end result

[Xant]

As for the Floyd quote

http://www.boxingscene.com/forums/showthread.php?t=157853

[Utrakil]

cba blocking so im gunna just dodge every swing

yepp that makes it much more skillful

who says dodging is no skill!

[Gravoth_iii]

People will complain about kiting and ask for a nerf to dodge.  You might as well not even bother implementing it if that's going to be the end result

What do you mean kiting? how is a dodge going to result in kiting?

[Smoothrich]

Double tapping sucks. Holding a button on a keyboard like shift to dart in a direction kind of sucks too. Been playing CoD: Advanced Warfare and the whole gimmick is dashing to the sides and behind with your jetpack. Works great on a controller but is kind of annoying on a keyboard since WASD and spinning your mouse around is kind of bad enough as it is, making action games more complicated with more presses isn't that fun.

Why not just mess with the strafing animations when you hold W or D or even how you backpedal to make them more combat oriented. Strafing to your side with little hops, that can be faster or farther based on your build.

Maybe even a toggle between free-movement and "combat stance" with one set of animations better for charging across a field or repositioning as an archer, and another stance where you juke, double step, whatever with A S and

Stances can also be worked into like, "bracing" for the opposite of offensive, abusable, spamming agi whoring dancing crap. So you can brace yourself and get much more limited mobility, but greatly enhance shield effectiveness or pike deadliness, or archer fire.

Not every player wants to derp and dodge around, but some probably do, so you should let them do that somehow but with trade-offs in balance, and let STR build/heavy infantry/teamwork players have something similar for holding ground together with less mobility.

And some lightly armored dude with a rapier should probably be strafing, lunging, etc completely different from a pikeman anyways, not just in attack animations but movement. So seems like this is a thing to look into for defining unique and pro playstyles.

Example: Forward hops instead of goofy jumps as a gap closer that you can combine with stabs and crap would be great with a longsword or rapier, but make no sense with a pike who should instead just take a big step forward or backward as their tradeoff for reach, power, playstyle, etc. But a pikeman who isn't deploying his weapon for combat should be able to run with the team, just not be as mobile during combat like a lighter infantry player could.

[Casimir]

A small side step / dodge with a decent cool down would be worthwhile adding if the over all combat movement speed was reduced to stop the strafing and circling that is so common in m&b combat.

[Smoothrich]

A small side step / dodge with a decent cool down would be worthwhile adding if the over all combat movement speed was reduced to stop the strafing and circling that is so common in m&b combat.

That's just how melee combat is. You are always trying to get to the side or "weak spot" of an enemy, whether its a duel vs a shielder or a clash of 2 armies. You should be encouraging people to aggressively turn their opponent to quickly kill them.

Cooldown hops and shit is just too unorganic and cheesy, everything should be pretty fluid and simple to control yet be tuned for deep, progressively more skilled gameplay, based on your sense of movement, timing, etc. Not memorizing your cooldowns like an MMO.

And bull fucking shit over imagining giant poleaxe or flamberge wielders bunny hopping around in plate. But I'd fully expect a player geared and built for agile dueling to have some innate animation or whatever that makes it easier to dodge and gap close people with bigger, longer weapons, but remaining overall Meta Balanced.

How about the ability to hop in with a deadly riposte if you successfully chamber someone? Like a little window where you can turn your chamber into a quick lunge while you aim a stabbing attack. Shit like that.

So a short weapon player can skillfully parry away a longer weapon then be rewarded with a gap closer, or some other timed block backstepping thing to get some space, or using repeated attacks to prevent someone from running away by limiting their movement options during repeated blocks, so you can overpower some RMB noob and turn his flank, but timed blocks keep your movement speed up and allow more mobility for repositioning.

Tie the movement to combat, make it dynamic and shit, and stats like agility can make you recover your speed faster between swings, but high damage/strength/big ass weapons/whatever don't give a blocker "weapon stun" but a chance based on w/e engine variables to really slow down someone's movement unless properly parried. Weak blocks vs strong blocks, a weak blocker has limited mobility, a pro one has much better mobility.

[Casimir]

Yeah but not circling at the speeds which are present in m&b, i know that attempting to get behind of flank your opponent is vital but the way this operates in m&b is not realistic or particularly effective at conveying this.

If you were to attempt to strafe as they do in m&b I'm fairly sure you'd end flat on your face with a sword through the back of your neck in a matter of seconds.

I think your idea for a change to the strafing animations or a toggle based stance system would work best, my only concern is the stance system might be clunky and could result in some real frustration if it isn't fluid enough.

[Teeth]

I would personally be able to deal with having to press a key to modify your default steps into a longer lunges. Double-tapping is awkward and annoying in my opinion, but a modifier button seems like a defensible choice if the entire mechanic is well designed and integrated. Having such an option could be a great way to heighten the skill ceiling of movement and enhance the look of combat, should at least be considered if you ask me. I have little doubt that I am able to absorb one other key press in my muscle memory and will retain full instinctual control. I rarely ever conciously think about my WASD movement, but when I look down I am apparently constantly making decisions. Problem is how to design it in a way that you won't always want to use it, but there are a few potential solutions that come to mind. Also making it look good animation wise is tricky of course, something at which Warband mostly failed but that never kept it down.

How about the ability to hop in with a deadly riposte if you successfully chamber someone? Like a little window where you can turn your chamber into a quick lunge while you aim a stabbing attack. Shit like that.

The risk with that is that you might not want to do that in every situation and relying on triggers for things like that happening take away intuitive control. I'd rather have more complex direct control, than simpler but unintuitive control.

That's just how melee combat is. You are always trying to get to the side or "weak spot" of an enemy, whether its a duel vs a shielder or a clash of 2 armies.

I disagree. In real-life melee combat seems to be rather immobile as movement without any direct offensive or defensive disadvantage serves solely to tire yourself. In any non projectile combat situation I have seen, people only use speed when attacking or defending as it is otherwise a waste. This is what I hope to see in Melee, that running around at your max combat speed constantly is somehow punished, prevented or otherwise not the default way of going about it. Preferably without anything lame as a stamina bar, but somehow having the activation of high movement speed only happen at key moments.

[Smoothrich]

Well consider it a relative speed burst compared to whoever you chamber. Like you knock them off balance and they can't s key or 360 jump s key away and they are open to you running in for a face stab. Like a regular block slows the blocker but a well timed offensive one just carries your momentum forwards if you w key for real powerful attacks but is riskier to attempt.

So it's not some god of war counters and dodges but an organic flow with basic controls but deeper combat.

[Smoothrich]

This is what I hope to see in Melee, that running around at your max combat speed constantly is somehow punished, prevented or otherwise not the default way of going about it. Preferably without anything lame as a stamina bar, but somehow having the activation of high movement speed only happen at key moments.

I've thought since I first heard about a new melee game that this should be accomplished just by combat. Like "balance" is modeled into how people attack or defend. If you run around at full speed you could be relatively poorly balanced and someone standing still will have a bigger window to get a "good block" or good attack in and make you slow or stagger or whatever. So if you attack while running wildly, aimed poorly, backpedaling, whatever, and someone blocks you in the correct direction within a certain intuitive window of the ideal time and position to block, that opens you up to a counter attack by making you slower at moving, pivoting, more likely to mess up your next block, creating a sort of boxing-type combo system for the combat.

So a heavy infantry dude won't be doing trick dodge shit, but will probably have good balance, making it easier to attack or defend with more generous windows of timing and positioning. 

A player who is good at timing and aiming attacks and blocks should be able to get the feeling of overpowering a noob, not with spam but just being better at moving and blocking and crap, and not letting people block every attack endlessly by having repeated blocks more likely to give you a good stagger/delay as you lose your balance.

A few graceful blocks or chambers and you should be able to dance around some heavy armored scrub if you so choose, like Muhammad Ali. But if they are also good and keep blocking you and attacking you back with equal skill, you don't really get the chance to lol-leap around them and shit.

You don't need to speed people up to do this, just slow down people who are fucking up in combat instead, requiring support to bail them out, a good counterplay, or just dying. Its like a virtual representation of discipline, morale, stamina, etc all in one.

[Gravoth_iii]

Yeah, no i-frames. The dodge in my mind should be mainly to position yourself, it will make for the larger part of footwork. Maybe it could be used to step aside from an overhead. But the time it really shines is if you are fighting alone vs 2 opponents, you dont want to fight them both at the same time, you want to shut one out of the fight. In crpg this is when you start backpeddaling, hoping that you are more agile than on of the enemies, always moving so that one is behind the other.

Best way to perform something like this would probably be shift clicking a direction, double taps dont work when you want to keep moving constantly.

cRPG's combat is already pretty amazing, M:BG's is changing it up slightly which can destroy the game completely (this scares me), but ofcourse it can also refine it and make it appeal to larger audiences while still keeping the feel of the strategic, skillbased combat of crpg/warband. Point im trying to get to is that movement and footwork is the part of crpg i think could be completely reworked to add more to the game compared to any changes to the fighting. Its great that we can discuss this here and hopefully add to the new game.