I’ve had the flue for nearly a week now, so I’ve had an opportunity to think about the combat in Driftmoon. It’s pretty hard to think about swinging a sword when your body tells you to crawl under a blanket, so I’ve gotten nowhere. I think I need your help with this. 
Should the combat be:
- Similar to Notrium, only with much improved melee.
- Like it is in the preview. A lot like Diablo.
- More strategic, you command your characters to attack and they do the fighting. You don’t deal out individual punches.
- Turn based. Action points. Like old Fallout games or XCom.
- JRPG: Separate combat screen with turn based rock/paper/scissor combat.
I liked the current system initially, but since I’ve played it for quite a while I’ve been craving for the player skill to be involved. Plan 1, combat similar to Notrium, would give us that. But recently I’ve disliked the combat in Notrium because it’s so fast paced and difficult, and the melee combat is just ridiculous pounding with more luck than skill involved. The melee would at least need a blocking button. And I don’t know whether I liked the fact that running away while shooting your enemies was a good strategy. Perhaps the aim should be penalized if you’re moving, and at least the enemies shouldn’t blindly run after you waiting for you to shoot them down.
Which combat system do you prefer?
I’d say “NO” to #4. Turn based system would (IMHO) look & play pretty bland for such top-down game.
It may be a bit too complicated, but why not doing something similar to the first games of Prince of Persia (1 / II: The shadow and the flame / 3D)? Skill is involved when choosing the right time to attack or defend, and it might just fit in Driftmoon.
I would like a mixture of options #2 and #3: Improve the current system (phearps add more stuff, such as like you mentioned ville, a small penalization in your aim if you are moving). Also it would be interesting if you could give “remote orders” to your friends:
Player shouts: Hey!, I need your help!
Player´s ally(ies): Going to help!
And the player´s allies go to help him… Phearps help him escape/win?
Another example:
P: Attack my target!
A: On my way!
And the allies go to attack the player´s current target…
Maybe the allies should refuse an order if they are too wounded or if they are already fighting too much enemies at once. Also some of your allies might not help you if they do not see it fit for them. Think about Velvet, for example, I think her might help you in some cases, but in others she might say “I am busy human, you must fight your own battles.”
or maybe an allied archer would say “I am out of ammo. Want do you want me to do, take hits for you?” (Of course last question was sort of a joke…)
It´s an idea, not very bright but I think you can make something out of it…
I agree with you that option number 1 is too fast paced. I think option number 4 will make the game get progressively boring. I think 2 and 3 are good choices, but I can’t decide which one.
Hmm. Fallout and X-Com are both utterly awesome and I like the action point system for tactical usage but it’d be quite a different game then.
I think #1 would work fine but as you said it would be difficult so there would need to be a very large difference between difficulty lvls(easy: less enemys with less health medium: normal
hard:more enemys with more health) anso if you used something like that you copuld have an alternate game mode like “survival” or something which would include enemys constantly streaming in and droping a lot of items.
Hope this was helpfull
Actually, i’d go for #4. Or maybe a turn-based/real-time hybrid, like the UFO series (UFO: Aftermath & Aftershock), aka. pause-based real-time tactics. Or hell, even a D&D-like system, pure RPG.
In any case, i’d much prefer some sort of tactical system for a top-down game, rather than an action-oriented one because it can be quite difficult to implement proper melee combat in a top-down view. At least i’ve never seen it done and i can’t imagine how it could be done.
Another argument for a tactical system on an indie game would be that the outcome can go either way much more easily. It’s sort of how in Rome: Total War, where tactics are important, i can have my 200 peasants attacked by a horde of 2500 vandals and come out with 1400 kills, while in Age of Empires 2, no amount of microing will allow 2 villagers to kill 14 out of 25 soldiers. In R:TW, i can have fun playing the battle over and over again because there are so many things that could happen. In AoE, not so much.
I’d go for either #3 or not so fast paced #1. Currently game seems most suited for #1 thanks to attack distances, pushbacks and ability to hit without being counterattacked but #3 would allow mouse only control nicely.
Ill say #4, but Ill admit its more of a personal preference than a honest opinion.
I have very strong feelings against either of 4 and 5. One of my favourite games, Smugglers, was recently made far less enjoyable by a revamped combat system focused far more on turn based, action point based combat. It made a game I loved into a game I only play when I am bored, and I would hope that the same would not happen to Driftmoon.
I personally like the idea of a slowed down version of 1, however as you say, with greatly improved melee fighting. Even if a strike with a weapon that occured in a few milliseconds after the enemy made a strike resulted in a ‘blocked’ result for both characters, that would be a fantastic improvement. Different types of ‘blows’ (quick, hard etc) could be selected by changing weapon as in Notrium, resulting in varied combat. That said, even though it wasn’t perfect, I quite liked the demo combat system, although it would need work to be more intuitive.
Hmm. Upon reconsidering, I came across an idea which may work rather well. It’s not based on any game I’ve played, and so may not work in practise, but tell me what you think, Ville! It sounds complicated in text, but it shouldn’t actually be; it’s just difficult to put across what I’m trying to say.
So, a 3-like strategic system, similar to Magebane. Standard combat could be entered into by originally right-clicking on an enemy. If the player is simply sent into combat, he and the enemy will engage in standard, hacking combat, that would deal low damage and not be tremendously effective.
Now, here’s what gets interesting. Once in combat, a range of “special attacks” would appear in a line of icons across the bottom of the screen. Things like “headbutt” “stab” “punch” “heavy blow” “whirl attack”. There would also be a self-replenishing “attacks points bar” (I cannot think of a name right now) above the line of attacks. It would remain full, until one of the attacks is clicked on. Let’s say you want to “headbutt” your enemy. To do so, the player would click on the “headbutt” icon. A certain number of attack points would be immediately subtracted from the bar (this could be different for different attacks; “headbutt” subtract less attack points than “heavy blow”), and the attack icon replicated as a miniature floating icon attached to the player’s mouse. The attack would effectively be “loaded”. To attack, the player would again right-click on the enemy they are fighting, and the player character would immediately add a headbutt into its combat sequence with the enemy (the hovering icon attached to the mouse would disappear, as it had been executed). While the attack bar will refill itself rather quickly, you would only be able to do one or two special attacks soon after each other, before waiting until the bar refills enough to do another.
So, so far, we have a range of fancy attacks that can all be executed seamlessly into combat. Powerful attacks (like “heavy blow” “whirl attack”) would use a lot of attack points and would set the attack bar back to almost zero, and so could only be done when the bar refills itself up to maximum; ie, rarely. Less powerful attacks (“headbutt” “punch” etc) would take less attack points from the bar, and so many could be done one after another (by clicking the icon to ‘load’, then clicking the enemy when the time is right) before the bar empties completely.
That’s not all though. Single clicking on one attack icon to ‘load’ then right-clicking on the enemy would execute that single attack immediately. However, if you single click on several attack icons in a row, you would be able to stack up a series of attacks that would, upon the right-click on the enemy, all be executed one after another (or, in some special cases, in combination) in a devastating set of violence.
Eg: you single click on “headbutt”, then “punch”, then “heavy blow”. On the first click, the miniature ‘headbutt’ icon will attach to the mouse, to be joined by the ‘punch’ icon on the second click, and the ‘heavy blow’ on the third. Once you right-click on the enemy, the player will then headbutt the enemy, punch him while he’s dazed and then launch into a powerful blow, all in quick succession. The attack bar, which by this point would be almost empty, would then start to refill, ready for new attacks to be added to the queue.
So, advantages of such a system:
* Allows for wide range of variation in attacks. List of attacks could grow as game continues and player learns new skills
* The player attributes (endurance, strength etc) could affect the maximum size of the attack bar, and how fast it refills
* Combat would occur more at player’s own pace; ‘standard’ combat entered into by originally clicking on an enemy would simply reveal the special attack icons, and not do much damage to either creature; it would be up to the player to take initiative by using special attacks.
* System allows for several moves to be executed seamlessly; also, allows for combo moves for certain mixes of attacks; a great thing for the player to discover and learn
* Certain mixes of attacks, just like in real life, would also not work at well together as others; something that would also have to be learnt
* Would let different players have different favourite ways and combinations of attacks for fighting, as well as different combinations for different types of enemy
* A series of attacks that are selected (‘loaded’) would stay stacked up (as shown by the floating icons attached to the mouse) for as long as the player stays in combat. This would be fantastic for selecting a killer combination of moves, and waiting for the exact right moment to unleash it on the enemy
Disadvantages and solutions
* Since the attack bar is refilling, a player could infinitely stack attacks by waiting for it to refill. So to solve, the bar would simply freeze when there is a queue of attacks, and would start to renew as soon as the attacks have been unleashed on the enemy.
* When queuing up a set of attacks, the attack bar would reduce until there aren’t enough points left to add to do certain attacks (or any at all). To solve this, attacks that cost more points than are available in the bar could fade out, and become unable to be clicked. As the stack of moves is executed and the bar begins to increase again, the moves would ‘unfade’ as soon as the bar is large enough to execute them.
* Ranged combat would be difficult; I haven’t yet thought of an effective way to work it into the system. Any ideas would be appreciated.
Criticism would be appreciated, thankyou.
Upon first glance I thought “this looks waaaay too complicated”, but after reading through I like the idea, thanks ZeXLR8er. It might be a very nice upgrade and enhancement to the current system. In general, I prefer more strategic elements (like in this idea), as I don’t really care for hack and slash.
This could even work well with the current mouse controlled control system, which I think makes the exploration quite pleasant in the preview version. With most of the other fighting options we’d have to move to keyboard controlled movement. And I think that (=keyboard controls) would make the exploration part of the game less fun, but I know it’s a matter of taste.
You are right: Ranged combat may loose a little something with this approach… But there are drawbacks to all systems, I think. I was also wondering whether it might be possible to incorporate an easy to handle block/defend system in this idea – does someone have thoughts on that??
This reminded me a bit of KOTORs system, and since I was bored and had nothing better to do, I made a little mockup: http://yfrog.com/jamockupij (hope this allows for links), even though after re-reading this it a bit different, but… what the hell. Any similar to your idea?
An original system indeed, ZeXLR8er. Like you said practice is different from theory – But I say that without theory there can not be practice, so I will be looking foward to see your system in the next beta/preview.
As for ranged attack, the “attack bar” works just fine: each time you use your bow, it consumes a bit of your attack bar “energy”. Of course we could add to the system some stuff like a “chance-to-hit” for ranged weapons (when you fire an arrow or throw a fireball, it might fail if your archery/magic skills are not high enough; an higher level may increace your to-hit chances and maybe damage, if such projectile is, like I said, a magic-based one).
I kinda liked the way it was in the preview version and I liked the Notriums combat system too.. I certainly hope you won’t make it like the options 3,4 and 5 are, as I feel such systems take away the possibility to affect the outcome of the fight and limit your choices way too much. I always hated the games where you are a bystander watching some colourful piles of pixels smashing each other with a huge oar like sword and your only job is to wait and once in a while press a key to make your character do some “Super move”..
I would only add some kind of endurance to the current combat system (Or the one in Notrium), so that running in circles and smashing the mouse button repeately would only get you exhausted and killed. Getting exhausted could also lower your attack so you would do less damage after a long fight and make you think twice before trying to kill 10 wolves in a row.
I have to disagree with tactical AP-based systems taking away the possibility to affect the outcome of the fight or even limit your choices if done properly.
Tactical systems usually substitute the reflex and hand-eye-coordination parts, timing and other such things present in ‘real-time’ combat with positioning and tactical decisions on what to use and when but they can be just as demanding from the player as any other system, if not more so.
Take Fallout or X-Com, both of the examples mentioned: I’ve finished Fallout with a very low-level character by using positioning and tactical use of my APs to minimize enemy chances to deal damage and maximize mine. And as anyone who has played X-Com knows, if you do not place everything correctly you /will/ die, if you do you still might. That game focuses on squad-based tactics and the perfect possible use of spotter/shooter pair dynamics, using cover and line of sight, explosives(modifying the terrain), tanks as moving cover, breach and clear… and the enemies do it too.
In other news, I like Zex’s idea.
I have to mention that I really dislike the hitpoint system. In reality, if you get hit in combat, you’re pretty screwed. D&D had very few hitpoints and a low hit rate, which sort of worked IMHO.
Just throwing that out there because i feel like the hitpoint system has gone rather far from where it began and where it was intended to simulate (the “original” hit points in wargames from which D&D was developed number one or two per character or so). I see this development as negative. You may agree or disagree with me there.
Just as a sidenote, armor lowering damage dealt rather than making the object more difficult to hit does not seem to me in any way logical. Also: exhaustion systems = good.
And thanks for your comment, Anne! I know what you mean, but I think you captured it well: from reading the description, it at first sounds complicated, however I think in reality/practise it would work quite intuitive and seamlessly. And I couldn’t agree more… keyboard controls to me make the exploration aspect less fun; with a system like this, all control would be with the mouse: right click on ground to move, right click on enemy to attack, left click on attack icons to choose special attacks and right click to attack with them. To me at least I think that would be simple and intuitive enough, while also retaining a level of depth to gameplay.
The problem I have with ranged weapons is that in this system, you’d have to right click on an enemy to engage in ‘standard combat’ with it, and reveal the ‘special attack’ icons. Since (I think) ranged weapons would be special attacks, it would be strange to use them, as at this point you’d already be in close combat and wouldn’t be using a bow. So, ideas on how could this issue could be solved in regards to this context? Perhaps right clicking on an enemy would enter standard melee combat where your character runs up to the enemy (with melee special attacks like headbutts and whirl attack), while double-right-clicking would enter standard ranged combat, where your character stands on the spot and doesn’t approach the enemy (with ranged special attacks like double shot and fire arrows). Again, this sounds complicated but I don’t think it would be overly; lots of games use double-right click in gameplay (often to charge the enemy).
Hey pete! The mockup is close, but not quiiiite what I was thinking.
I’ll put together one myself to help demonstrate the idea better. Check back in an hour or so! 
Excuse the “and”; I rearranged the comment and didn’t fix it up.
Also, with the “… right click on ground to move …” section of the above comment; I haven’t played Driftmoon for a week or two, but I just did and remembered you can move with left click as well. Just a correction to make sure noone thought I was suggesting a different movement system. 
OK, mockup time. Both screenshots show the character fighting an invisible enemy, simply because I am probably an idiot and couldn’t work out how to take a screenshot of Driftmoon (printscreen doesn’t work?) and had to use one posted by Ville earlier. Just pretend the glowing torch is a rare Driftmoonian Firefly of Doom.
Shot 1 shows the player in the middle of ‘standard combat’ with the firefly (achieved by right clicking on the firefly originally to start combat and reveal the attack icons). They have stacked up two attacks, Punch and Shield Ram by clicking on the attack icons. This is shown by the attacks selected having been lit up green, and their icons being displayed as hovering minutures attached to the mouse. The attack bar is also somewhat drained after these two attacks have been selected, and is about half full. To unleash these attacks, the player would just have to right click on the firefly, and they would be executed either one after another, or possibly as a combo move.
http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/922/driftmooncombatmockup1.png
Before executing the attacks, however, the player suddenly decided that the firefly was so ferocious that another attack was required. In Shot 2, the player has now selected an extra attack (Stab), which is shown by the main Stab icon being lit up green, and it’s miniture added to Punch and Shield Ram on the mouse. The attack bar has also been decreased further. However, since now there are less points remaining than it requires to selected the Whirl Attack move, this icon is grayed out, and can no longer be selected. To select this attack, the player would have to execute the stacked moves by right clicking on the enemy, and then wait for the attack bar to recharge.
http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/5989/driftmooncombatmockup2.png
Once again, comments and particularly criticism would be greatly appreciated, thanks guys.
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(Dammit, now I want to go re-watch Firefly.
If I’m decrypting that wall of text correctly, it could be summarized to “automatic combat with recharging specials”. For example KotOR, Dragon Age and quite a few MMOS use that. It’s a pretty good system, one I’ve been favouring when talking with Ville.