Stiler
08-15-2006, 05:20 AM
I find the idea of having real time player combat very appealing in an mmo (it's one of the main reasons I've grown tired of most of the current mmo's out there).
However in my experience with melee combat systems there's quite a few things that can work out good and bad.
I'm a huge fan of Action/adventure games, been playing those types for years. Games like Die by the sword, Rune, Severance: Blade of darkness, jedi knight, etc.
When it comes to melee combat systems most games use a form of combat similar to Jedi knight. Where you simply push a direction key and then the "attack" button.
Now the main problem with this is that it forces characters to move and then attack, which leads to an almost stupid looking movement to the characters. They look and feel like you're trying to "dance" or something, it looks very unrealistic and out of place usually. In most multiplayer games with such a combat system you have most people simply swinging their sword about and running in circles trying to hit the other person, it takes almost no strategy really.
There are two games that actually tried something different/more unique. That was Die by the Sword and Severance.
In Die by the sword they actually tried to let you use your mouse and have it directly control your characters arm , it was dubbed "VSIM" control. Now the problem it suffered from though was that as you all know, the mouse that most of you use is on a 2d plane, it can only move really on a 2d axis, however the characters hand was in a 3d plane, and thus it was quite a bit of a pain trying to make him do what you wanted to. Still, it was somethin different and actually you could get decent at it, but usually couldn't quickly pull off the excat moves you wanted to.
Now Severance imo is the one Melee combat system to have gotten it dead on right. To this day I still use it's system as the bar on which I judge all other melee combat systems.
In Severance how the combat worked was basically you had an action button. You pressed it (and held it down) and THEN you pressed a direction key to do a move. What this did was it eliminated the problem that Jedi knight and other games have of the "breakdancing on crack" movement that many games suffer from. The movements of your character looked realistic and you weren't just moving all over the place like a crack addict.
Another key thing was the soft lock. Now this wasn't a magical "lock on" system, you didn't magically have your axe guided into someone's head. It was merely a soft lock that kept your character oriented toward the enemy. It put your character into a 3d plane of movement instead of a 2d one like you're usually on without a soft lock. The A/D keys instead of moving left or right moved you in a circle around your enemy.
When you did a combat move the combat move played out in the direction you started it from, so if your enemy moved/dodged it wouldn't hit them and you'd miss. Since moves could be quick or slow you could see some start to swing at you and know when to dodge, etc.
Another decent thing was that it had combo's. Now I admit some of them are quite hard to pull off, however they added quite a bit of variety to combat. You weren't just swinging left/right/overhead, you had moves that you learned depending on the weapons you held and the character you were playing as.
As far as defense goes, there were both dodging and blocking. The defense was a cruical part of combat. You couldn't simply "spam" attacks, both because of a stamina system aswell as the enemies could dodge/block and then you were vunerable afterwards. You yourself had to learn how to effectively learn to exploit the enemies. Dodge/block their attacks and counter them. You see someone bring their weapon back to go for a left swing and you quickly sidestep to the right out of the way and then bring you rsword down for a blow right into their side.
With Shields they could be damaged. You couldn't simply "turtle" behind them or such. They'd break, etc and then you'd either have to find another or start dodging attacks instead of blocking.
Now one thing that I understand, when it comes to an MMO the netcode is a limiting factor. I'm not quite sure how limited it makes melee combat but a few other mmo's coming out with real time combat are having "only" real time offense, but automatic defense which they have said they ended up doing because of the netcode reasons and such.
I really hope Kaos War has a kick ass melee combat system and hopefully avoids the pitfalls of most other melee combat systems like Jedi Knight and others. Also I hope it takes tactics/strategy in combat and allows people to overcome lv's and gear dependency with player skill to a degree.
Edit - just noticed I posted this is in the wrong forum, it shoulda been in the gameplay mechanics forum, sorry :(.
However in my experience with melee combat systems there's quite a few things that can work out good and bad.
I'm a huge fan of Action/adventure games, been playing those types for years. Games like Die by the sword, Rune, Severance: Blade of darkness, jedi knight, etc.
When it comes to melee combat systems most games use a form of combat similar to Jedi knight. Where you simply push a direction key and then the "attack" button.
Now the main problem with this is that it forces characters to move and then attack, which leads to an almost stupid looking movement to the characters. They look and feel like you're trying to "dance" or something, it looks very unrealistic and out of place usually. In most multiplayer games with such a combat system you have most people simply swinging their sword about and running in circles trying to hit the other person, it takes almost no strategy really.
There are two games that actually tried something different/more unique. That was Die by the Sword and Severance.
In Die by the sword they actually tried to let you use your mouse and have it directly control your characters arm , it was dubbed "VSIM" control. Now the problem it suffered from though was that as you all know, the mouse that most of you use is on a 2d plane, it can only move really on a 2d axis, however the characters hand was in a 3d plane, and thus it was quite a bit of a pain trying to make him do what you wanted to. Still, it was somethin different and actually you could get decent at it, but usually couldn't quickly pull off the excat moves you wanted to.
Now Severance imo is the one Melee combat system to have gotten it dead on right. To this day I still use it's system as the bar on which I judge all other melee combat systems.
In Severance how the combat worked was basically you had an action button. You pressed it (and held it down) and THEN you pressed a direction key to do a move. What this did was it eliminated the problem that Jedi knight and other games have of the "breakdancing on crack" movement that many games suffer from. The movements of your character looked realistic and you weren't just moving all over the place like a crack addict.
Another key thing was the soft lock. Now this wasn't a magical "lock on" system, you didn't magically have your axe guided into someone's head. It was merely a soft lock that kept your character oriented toward the enemy. It put your character into a 3d plane of movement instead of a 2d one like you're usually on without a soft lock. The A/D keys instead of moving left or right moved you in a circle around your enemy.
When you did a combat move the combat move played out in the direction you started it from, so if your enemy moved/dodged it wouldn't hit them and you'd miss. Since moves could be quick or slow you could see some start to swing at you and know when to dodge, etc.
Another decent thing was that it had combo's. Now I admit some of them are quite hard to pull off, however they added quite a bit of variety to combat. You weren't just swinging left/right/overhead, you had moves that you learned depending on the weapons you held and the character you were playing as.
As far as defense goes, there were both dodging and blocking. The defense was a cruical part of combat. You couldn't simply "spam" attacks, both because of a stamina system aswell as the enemies could dodge/block and then you were vunerable afterwards. You yourself had to learn how to effectively learn to exploit the enemies. Dodge/block their attacks and counter them. You see someone bring their weapon back to go for a left swing and you quickly sidestep to the right out of the way and then bring you rsword down for a blow right into their side.
With Shields they could be damaged. You couldn't simply "turtle" behind them or such. They'd break, etc and then you'd either have to find another or start dodging attacks instead of blocking.
Now one thing that I understand, when it comes to an MMO the netcode is a limiting factor. I'm not quite sure how limited it makes melee combat but a few other mmo's coming out with real time combat are having "only" real time offense, but automatic defense which they have said they ended up doing because of the netcode reasons and such.
I really hope Kaos War has a kick ass melee combat system and hopefully avoids the pitfalls of most other melee combat systems like Jedi Knight and others. Also I hope it takes tactics/strategy in combat and allows people to overcome lv's and gear dependency with player skill to a degree.
Edit - just noticed I posted this is in the wrong forum, it shoulda been in the gameplay mechanics forum, sorry :(.