[Adonthell-devel] Battle System, take II

[Alexandre Courbot]

Okay, there has been a huge discussion on the mailing list about the
Battle System. Also, that's what we talked about quite a long time
during the IRC meeting (I think logs are on the FTP) - so in order to
(try to) keep things clear, I'll summarize a bit what has been said
during the meeting, along with the ML discussion.

First, and very important, due to the German lobbies pressure, it has
been decided that fights will take place on the map, and not on a
dedicated area (gfx guys say "fiuuuuu! `:D"). The new map engine will
use a sufficient resolution to allow this, and it could allow nice
effects when you think about it - surprise attacks, battles on places
like bridges (where the surroundings are very important), better
integration with the rest of the game - you could for example hit
objects. So even the arena fanatic I am gave up - and as I was the last,
it looks like this subject is finally settled, after nearly two years of
debate! ;)

What follows is still, of course, open to discussion.

I won't enter into the details of interaction with magic - just how you
could control your characters to do what you want them to do.

First, the fighting engine would run in realtime. There are several
reasons for this: allowing the world around to continue being updated,
providing more exciting gameplay, and prevent players to wait each
others in multiplayer. This doesn't mean fights will turn into action
games. At all.

I've already exposed the idea, but we discussed it deeper: the player
would have several 'basic' moves available (hit with your weapon from
top to bottom, right to left, slowly but strongly, quickly but weakly,
etc...) and could learn others from 'teachers'. In any safe place, or
maybe only in training rooms, the player could then enter a
pseudo-battle mode where his opponent would be a sand bag or
punching-ball he could hit as much as he wants. In this mode, he could
then build and record the attacks he would use in real fight by
'combining' some basic moves. The attacks could then be saved in a
limited number of slots, and the player could reuse them in real battle.

Some combos would need the appropriate level of experience to be
found/run. Some others would need you to have found one or several prior
combos. These ones would be 'extra' combos that are not needed at all to
finish the game, in case some players are not fan of this learning
system. But perseverant players would be rewarded by discovering them.

This system makes that every player could really play the way he likes,
and I think letting players adapt their gameplay to their nature is 50%
of the fun. You could even do funny things like, in multiplayer, teach
your combos to another player - for some money of course! :)

This is what appeared during the chat.

I thought a little further about that, and have some extra ideas. As you
may know, I'm a martial arts addict and have a great interest in swords
manipulation. So my concern with the fighting engine is that it should
be as realistic as possible, in the way to 'learn' moves and to apply
them. What's below is only the fruit of my thoughts, so a heavy
discussion for improvments is welcome.

There would be several 'types' of basic moves:
-Offensive moves,
-Defensive moves,
-Transition moves.

Offensive moves are different moves to cut/hit what's in front of you,
more or less quickly, strongly and surprisingly. Defensive moves would
be moves that are automatically triggered when you are attacked and you
are fast enough to guess what the opponent is trying to do, to break the
attack (and, why not, counter attack if combined with an offensive
move). Transition moves are moves you can place between two offensive
moves when creating a combo, that would raise the surprise effect and
shorten the time between the two attacks - or help realizing the next
attack. As I am certainly not very clear, let's take an example:

Say I am cutting my opponent from right to left with the sword in my
left hand. The velocity of the sword will make it hard and long to stop
it before I can hit another time, because I have to use my muscles to
stop the sword and re-throw it. Hard unless I'm using a proper
technique: I can well leave the sword continue it's run behind my back,
give it (still behind the back) to my right hand and make a quick
frontal attack (prick), taking advantage of the fact that the circular
movment transmitted the velocity of the sword to the second attack,
without any physical effort for the attacker. Switching the sword of
hand behind the back would be an transition move that, when combined
with the two offensive moves (right to left cut and prick) described
above, shorten the time between these two attacks and gives the prick
much more power. With these different types of movments, there are much
more possible combinaisons - and it's just similar to what the player
would think if he had the sword in hand.

Apart from the commands, I quite agree with the long ML discussion,
especially JT's initial idea - even though I don't know SoM much ;) AI
commanded characters are fine, but if you could give them orders (or
even sometimes totally control them) it would even be better IMO. But
would you want not to bother with them, you can.

I don't think such a system has been seen anywhere yet, and I honnestly
like it very much. I hope you do too ;p Please comment, improve,
disaproove, flame, ...

Alex.

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