Life is Feudal Official Forum

[Hoshiqua]

Here are just a few ideas I have for combat system, to make it better.

First idea ; damage system

I think the "damage nodes" system is very good, but it can be problematic ! What if someone manages to not be hit by one of those damage nodes but visually get hit by the sword ?

I have an idea for that. It's almost the same system, but will allow for realistic damage, and if you see that, visually, you just split your oponent in half, well, he'll feel it ! It's quite simple. Instead of having damage nodes on weapons, give them a hitbox. Exept that, the system to calculate damage would be as follow..

When hitbox hits a body part, you get the distance of the point that hit the body part from the tip of the weapon. In the case of swords, the further, the better. Now, I know what you think.." this means you will do more damage if you hit with the low part of the weapon ? "Nope ! Because, if the animations are realistic, as they are right now, the speed modifier with the point on the lower part of the blade should naturally be way, way lower than if yu hit with the tip. But if you manage to have great speed and hit with lower part of the blade, you should wound the guy real bad. Now, for speed calculation, it would be same system ;

32ms after hitbox hit something, You get the position of the tip of the weapon, go along the weapon in the direction of the lower part using the distance from the tip you got earlier. Then you calculate speed as it does right now. This won't work for EVERY weapon, but for weapons like swords, axes, bardiches, lances.. it would be more realistic ! You wouldn't do much damage if you hit someone real fast with end of your blade, you would at most cut him quite badly, but it wouldn't kill him, while right now, the game encourages ya to hit with the greatest range possible.

Attention, yes, you would do more damage the further you are from the tip (if we take into account that you have same speed bonus no matter which part of the weapon you hit with), but it would have its limits ! Hitting with the handle of a sword, or the shaft of the great axe, shouldn't do any damage.

Second idea ; Parry system.

I'm completly fine with current blocking (with shield) system. It's like mount and blade. But I think the parrying system should also be like mount & blade.. It is easy to learn, hard to master, and would allow you to actually parry someone without having a shield and actually take no damage (yes it's possible !). Now, if you absolutly want to make it different, well, you should try and find a system that will allow skilled two handers to not take damage if they see the hit coming (right now you ALWAYS take damage, no matter how good you parry).

Third idea ; counter attacks.

It may be already in the game, I never tried, but it would definitly be good if you could have like a "backslash" attack when you just parried someone, special move that would allow to hit the guy quicker, and would make long duels more epic, because you would have to stay in melee and parry hits that go fast.. with epic animations of backslash you'll find yourself with GoT combat scenes

Fourth idea ; Kick.

Like in most medieval combat game, you should be able to kick your opponent to break his guard if he hasn't got like a tower shield or something

Fifth idea ; differences according to your current speed

I think the game should change your animations according to your speed. Let's take one example ; a normal slash. It would be current slash if you're not moving. But if you're going at a certain speed (no matter if you are walking or running - only real speed the character is going at should matter), like you are running, you should do a faster, wider, and less acurate swing, so charging with big swords like zweihander would be an actual advantage, rather than just being long ass swords that will get you to hit your friends all the time.

This idea could also affect other moves ! Kick for example. If you are not moving, you should perform a normal kick, but if you are going very fast, you could jump and kick the guy very hard.

Sixth idea ; Health bar

I don't think the hard HP bar should exist, only the soft HP one. With the wounds system, you could implement "fatal wounds", that cause death immediatly or after a few seconds. I mean, let' ask ourselves that .. in real life, what is fighting someone ? It is disabling him by hurting his body parts until he's not a threat anymore ; sometimes, leading to the death, or "total disabling of everything for eternity in a life form". I think this would work good in LiF ! Every wound would give ya a malus, make you bleed eventually, and using all of those malus, someone should be able to easily inflict a deadly wound to you, and put you down.

I always found the HP bar system stupid xD you can get an arrow in the heart, get slashed in the belly, you are fine, but if you are stupid enough trip your toe on the sofa feets after that, then you are.. dead, while with this system, you would most likely already be dead, and if you're not, tripping your toe should only give some more maluses..

seventh idea ; the thrust attack

Thrusting is kind of a bet.. if you succed thrusting the guy, and you got a good quality weapon / he's got a shitty armor, you get through, and he dies (using my previous idea, you would get a fatal wound "pierced" that depending on the body part hit, would kill you imediatly, after a few seconds, or give you a very bad malus). So, I don't think you should be able to just spam thrusting attacks by mashing your mousse ; I think it should be a special ability, like it is in war of the vikings, that you can use every a certain number of seconds depending on your weapon.
If you hit someone, there should be a calculation. Either it deals full damage, or deals 0 damage to the player himself. It could take into consideration the body part hit (hitting the center of the belly or one of the side would have different effect normally .. sword could simply be deflected on a side, even if it is powerful enough to pierce), the quality of the armor on the body part hit (0 if naked), and the quality of the weapon.

I will add other ideas in the posts bellow - Sorry for the wall-o-text

[Jimbo]

My thoughts.



1. Damage System

The combat system that is currently in the game seems to be close to solid already, if the hit registration gets a little work (and armor gets buffed). I think trying to implement some sort of locational weapon damage, while realistic, would be a little too much. For an MMO with real-time combat, locational weapon damage would look inaccurate because of ping. What appears on one fighter's screen doesn't sync up exactly with anothers, which overall leads me to believe the weapon damage system in place has the right amount of complexity. (Speed of weapon and type of swing affecting the type of damage)





2. Parry System


The devs have stated (IIRC) in the FAQ that directional blocking would not be implemented because of the issue of ping once more. The more technical the fighting gets, the worse it gets because of the natural 50-100 ms delay from one person's actions to another. Adding directional blocking would mean the defender has to more or less guess which way the attacker is going to swing from and attempt to block it, resulting in almost all attacks hitting due to people having even less time to react. It works in M&B because the combat is slower paced and gives more time for the defender to react accordingly, and even then in M&B directional blocking (online) can be tricky.





3. Counter Attacks

I think the word you are looking for is "Riposte".

I would have to agree this would be a good feature to have, but not crucial to combat. Basically if you succeeded a block, the animation frames could get sped up by 30% (just a rough guess) to simulate a riposte or counter attack.





4. Kicking

Absolutely agree with this, a kick to break shield guards is necessary.





5. Differences According to Speed

This idea i'm not so sure about. Creating different animations and weapon paths depending on your speed falls under the same category as your locational weapon damage idea; Superflous. If you are hitting your friends with your zweihander I would suggest doing overhead or stabbing attacks.

A running kick sounds badass.





6. Health Bar.

I really like the way they did the health bar. Soft and Hard HP is a cool way to distinguish between lethal and nonlethal weapons. Although I think if you knock someone out with a nonlethal weapon, you should be able to keep hitting them while they are on the ground to deal lethal damage.




7. Thrusting

Not sure why you think thrusting should be some sort of special attack instead of a normal directional attack. Yes a lot of weapons deal piercing damage when they thrust, which is better vs. some armor, but what you are gaining in the damage type, you lose in the fact that the weapon path is harder to connect with. Instead of a wide, sweeping motion you must be pinpoint accurate to connect with a thrusting attack.

A weapon dealing either full, or no damage sounds wrong to me. The armor does need a buff, and the reduction of damage it SHOULD grant might be able to completely shrug off certain blows, but making it cut and dry so that a weapon either deals full damage or none at all shouldn't happen IMO.