[Adonthell-general] Combat

[nilsfohrbeck]

Hi!

When I tried to come up with a combat system (and all the final stats to finish 
the rules rough draft) I realized that in the end it all came down to one 
question: How do we want the finished game to look and feel like? As some of 
you might have noticed the system I developed so far does not defined the 
combat format, but in order to finish the rules system we will have to agree 
how we want to handle combat. And I am saying WE because I certainly should not 
decide this on my own. 

My suggestion is the following: I think we should have real time combat on the 
map (a different combat screen does not make for consistant gameplay, and it 
would mean double the graphics(and well, we could always add that later on)). 
The only problem is that real time combat can be defined quite differently. If 
we look at zelda and secret of mana on the SNES, two fairly similar games we 
see, that there are more differences than meets the eye at first sight. The 
reason why I mention zelda is because it does not feature anything like a rule 
system, everything is handled in game and depends on the player's dexterity 
(your character has three hearts, and whenever he is hit he looses a heart, 
with 0 hearts left he dies). If you do not want to be hit, you must block with 
your shield.

Secret of mana on the other hand uses more character stats, such as strength 
ect. Unfortunately they are not self-explanatory and since I do not have a 
rules book (I play using an emulator) they are no good for me , and if I raise 
any of these I do not really know what consequences it has. In Adonthell we 
should make everything self-explanatory, with an easy system that still offers 
a lot of interesting choices. In order to make everything easy and fun I would 
aim for the "in game approach". A very good example to demonstrate this are 
spells: If an elven mage casts a lightning bolt in order to kill a bear. There 
are two ways in which we could handle this. The "statistics approach" would 
mean that the mage has some kind of macigal attack rating and the bear some 
kind of defense rating, the two will then be compared and the calculations 
determine whether the bear is hit or not. In this case the "in game approach" 
means that the mage releases the lightning bolt in a certain dir!
 ection, and if the bear is in the bolt's way it is hit. The same applies to 
missile weapons and the like.

All in all this is just a question of style, both approches have been 
succesfully implemented in differennt games, and we only have to decide if we 
want Adonthell to feel more jump and run like (The "in game approach"),which 
means the player has to be dexterious to beat the game, or if we prefer a 
strategy atmosphere (the "statistics approach"), which means the player must 
try different tactics and combinations to beat a foe. Of course the final 
result will be a combination of both styles, using the best from two worlds (or 
so they say :))! Well, we will have to discuss this openly and find a solution, 
good luck:)!

Now to get the discussion going, here is my opinion: I believe that we should 
try to go for the "in game approach". I think so because by hiding the game 
mechanics and using not too many statistics the player pays less attention to 
the rules and more attention to the story and the actual roleplaying of course. 
In fact I believe that we should start out making the game with abilities, 
skills, alignment, energy (life and power) and level only. For example the 
level could also be used as a resistance value, whenever one is needed 
(generally speaking, as a character becomes more experienced he will find it 
easier to avoid the negative effects of spells and poison). Skills on the other 
hand are used to define and imagine your character (what is he good at, how 
could he make a living) and the abilities would handle all the combat relevant 
aspects of the character. For example we all agree that a character becomes 
stronger as he advances. but do we need a strength value to represen!
 t this? As the character gains levels, he may learn to use better weapons 
(ranks in the melee weapons ability) which automatically lets him do more 
damage. And we could use the fighting feats to represent his better fighting 
technique (instead of a to hit value) by giving characters with enough ranks in 
fighting feats something like "hard hit" which would deal out more damage. Of 
course this would mean that all the special abilities and fighting feats would 
have to be balanced carefully. And if I see that this approch does not work, I 
can still come up with a bunch of statistics :)! Well, let me know if you thinl 
that I should start making up feats and  special abilities (runes, alchemy, 
songs and spells) according to this "in game approach". I would love to give it 
a try.

I imagine combat with 4 buttons since the SNES controller had 4 buttons (not 
including start, select or the l and r button). On the keyboard these could be 
ctrl, alt, space and enter by default (and then be reconfigured as the player 
likes it). One button would be for jumping, one the use button (also primary 
attack), while the other two buttons could be defined by the character's 
abilities. You could for example put a spell or a special attack gained by a 
fighting feat or something else on one of these.

[In the very far future we could even include special moves which would work 
the following way. By using a certain combination of abilities (and pressing 
the buttons in the right order (acctually other things like wearing the right 
magical ring could also be required)) you could get special combos (backstab 
and aimed strike could do extra damage, while a rainshower might increase the 
effectiveness of a lightning bolt).] 

Another thing we need to decide on is the inventory. I mention this here, 
because I think the inventory is closely linked to combat. I would prefer a 
paper doll system (like in Diablo or Baldur's Gate), to represent which 
equipment is equiped (the rest will be kept in the player 's backpack). 

I know this mail is way too long, but well, once I started I got carried away a 
little bit :), Nils 
 
   


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