I have already bitched enough about Darkfall sprint and why I hate darkfall melee. Sprint aside though i do not think darkfall melee is all that bad. At least if my theory is right and this is how it is suppose to work.
Great Axes: Normal short range heavy damage, but have strongest power attack to be used for precise timing.
Great Maces: Best against armor
Great Swords: best all around
Polearms: Longest range and heavy hitters but slowest
Daggers: Fast DPS and great arc. They are about positioning yourself where you can strike and your enemy can't and keeping that position.
This is really not a bad system at all and gives a lot of room to grow.
Wednesday 15 April 2009
My dream melee system for an MMO
When i think of what my dream melee system for an MMO would be this
http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/3579-alpha-combat-system-short.html
- Left click attack
- right click block
- Hold attacks
- Benefit towards movement
- Active blocking
- Active aiming
- 3rd person over the shoulder
- Is simple but complex when combined with movement combination
- Attacks, special attacks , blocks and moves are carried out by player controls (not hot buttons) Example run and strike equals a power strike.
- Smart implementation of realism but not over the top
- Directional Blocking and striking ( i know this hard due to transfer issues but will put it in there anyhow)
- Progressive gain but does not equal pawnage by character skill gain a lone. I do not think a person should gain more then 30 to 50 percent damage, speed, or other increase from noob to master.
- There is a charge and not a sprint for 3 minutes straight (sorry darkfall)
- To sums things up at the least oblivion/slowdowned savage 2 at the most mount and blade
http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/3579-alpha-combat-system-short.html
Mortal Online Will so Pawn Darkfall G-Gangsta E-Peen Noob Rookie Salamander slime.
I am getting really sick of hearing people talk about how Mortal Online will pawn Darkfall. The best retort to this is the fact Darkfall is out Mortal is not. Mortal Online does have some nice videos and a lot of talk but their rubber has not hit the road yet. It will have its own crap to deal with once their release comes around.
What pisses me off even further is the assumption to have hopes for mortal means I have to hate darkfall and visa versa. Both games are helping expand similar frontiers in sandbox/pvp genre. Yet even the mention of each others games on hometurf forums enacts fanboi rage.
What pisses me off even further is the assumption to have hopes for mortal means I have to hate darkfall and visa versa. Both games are helping expand similar frontiers in sandbox/pvp genre. Yet even the mention of each others games on hometurf forums enacts fanboi rage.
Darkfall PvE
Darkfall PvE is something that has gotten a lot of criticism. Many people say the AI sucks, heavily exploited, unfriendly to soloers, bad quests ect. ect.
AI in Darkfall i think is really good. The monsters are challenging and work together. They switch tactics and make a decent, but long experience for the player. That said though the AI does have its gaps, especially when the mobs comes to the edge of their habitat (area where they roam). When that happens its a matter of just kiting the monster, but even this is a risky back and forth. If the monester has good range or if it likes to call friends you also find yourself in some bad predicaments. There are also some sadder and buggier gaps in the AI however like crouching to avoid hits. Another overly common mobs flaw is random spaz running. Aventurine to their credit though does seem to be patching these fast.
Many of the monsters also cannot be meleed. They just hit to hard. Most of the time you find yourself barraging them with Mana Missle and arrows trying to get their health down so you can go in for the kill. I do like this weapon switching, but this is also however a symptom of darkfalls poor melee system.
Much of the PvE is not solo friendly. The looming threat of PKs also makes this the case. If you want to solo you have to be smart. To be honest I think this is the way it should be and enjoy this aspect of the game. Most of the mobs work and groups and make you do the same.
Mob placement for the most part I enjoy. They are space a part rather nicely and realistically. My main complaint is that there are only static mob camps. Wandering mobs do not excist in this game. This works out well for providing PvP hotspots around the mobs but hurts things like immersion and even economy. The lack of leather carrying mobs for instance, especially animals has really contributed to the shortage of leather. Leather i think should be a resource as easily gathered as wood and ore. This is best done through wondering wildlife. It would be great if darkfall added some skittish animals that had to snuck up upon and chased down.
Quests are what they are in darkfall. Do not expect to rifle through 50 quests in 4 hours. The quests are hard because of the mobs AI and they are gonna make you work for them. You are going to have to work with other questers and also fight against them for loot. Most of the quests are your basic go kill and go fetch. But the mob AI does make it fun, frustraiting however if your purpose is to farm. The quest writing i would say is subpar. Darkfall does not have the greatest lore in the world but it does have enough to write some fun and interesting quests.
PvE and PvP combination. The static camp mobs do work well making pvp hotspots. But the lack of healing and recovering mechanic in darkfall counter this. Once a pver is attacked he is either gonna die or run away. There is little hope of turning the fight against the attacker and making the encounter a fun dynamic pvp experiance.
AI in Darkfall i think is really good. The monsters are challenging and work together. They switch tactics and make a decent, but long experience for the player. That said though the AI does have its gaps, especially when the mobs comes to the edge of their habitat (area where they roam). When that happens its a matter of just kiting the monster, but even this is a risky back and forth. If the monester has good range or if it likes to call friends you also find yourself in some bad predicaments. There are also some sadder and buggier gaps in the AI however like crouching to avoid hits. Another overly common mobs flaw is random spaz running. Aventurine to their credit though does seem to be patching these fast.
Many of the monsters also cannot be meleed. They just hit to hard. Most of the time you find yourself barraging them with Mana Missle and arrows trying to get their health down so you can go in for the kill. I do like this weapon switching, but this is also however a symptom of darkfalls poor melee system.
Much of the PvE is not solo friendly. The looming threat of PKs also makes this the case. If you want to solo you have to be smart. To be honest I think this is the way it should be and enjoy this aspect of the game. Most of the mobs work and groups and make you do the same.
Mob placement for the most part I enjoy. They are space a part rather nicely and realistically. My main complaint is that there are only static mob camps. Wandering mobs do not excist in this game. This works out well for providing PvP hotspots around the mobs but hurts things like immersion and even economy. The lack of leather carrying mobs for instance, especially animals has really contributed to the shortage of leather. Leather i think should be a resource as easily gathered as wood and ore. This is best done through wondering wildlife. It would be great if darkfall added some skittish animals that had to snuck up upon and chased down.
Quests are what they are in darkfall. Do not expect to rifle through 50 quests in 4 hours. The quests are hard because of the mobs AI and they are gonna make you work for them. You are going to have to work with other questers and also fight against them for loot. Most of the quests are your basic go kill and go fetch. But the mob AI does make it fun, frustraiting however if your purpose is to farm. The quest writing i would say is subpar. Darkfall does not have the greatest lore in the world but it does have enough to write some fun and interesting quests.
PvE and PvP combination. The static camp mobs do work well making pvp hotspots. But the lack of healing and recovering mechanic in darkfall counter this. Once a pver is attacked he is either gonna die or run away. There is little hope of turning the fight against the attacker and making the encounter a fun dynamic pvp experiance.
Sunday 12 April 2009
Darkfall and sprinting
I really enjoy darkfall. The game has many flaws but i am willing to overlook them and wait for them to be fixed. The one thing about the game that irks me the most however is the sprinting.
If you are not familiar with this, watch some youtube videos. Combat is very much run around like a chicken whacking your beak everywhere. People can basically sprint non stop for a few minutes whacking. They have improved it somewhat since beta but still it is lacking. I really think only a major overhaul of the sprinting system would work.
Sprinting also seems to be why ranged weapons have an insane advantage in the game. Basically makes combat too fast paced for short ranged weapons.
In beta the devs said they did not like the way sprinting worked out. They liked a solution offered by a tester the most. Which is basically like savage 2 where sprinting has a small pool it draws from. As you sprint for a few seconds, 10 at the most the pool drains. This basically turns sprint into a charge or retreat and not monkey monkey run. The only problem i see with this however is it would give mounts an unwanted advantage because players would be slower chacing them.
If they do not want to do that the only solution i could think of would be giving all the weapons outside of polearms equal range.
greatsword would be balanced speed and damage
Greatax be all about slow heavy all around damage.
Maces be about heavy damage toward armor
daggers you cannot really give much more distance so a bleed effect or bigger arc would likely be better.
Would be a shitty and boring system. But would be a shitty and boring that system that worked.
If you are not familiar with this, watch some youtube videos. Combat is very much run around like a chicken whacking your beak everywhere. People can basically sprint non stop for a few minutes whacking. They have improved it somewhat since beta but still it is lacking. I really think only a major overhaul of the sprinting system would work.
Sprinting also seems to be why ranged weapons have an insane advantage in the game. Basically makes combat too fast paced for short ranged weapons.
In beta the devs said they did not like the way sprinting worked out. They liked a solution offered by a tester the most. Which is basically like savage 2 where sprinting has a small pool it draws from. As you sprint for a few seconds, 10 at the most the pool drains. This basically turns sprint into a charge or retreat and not monkey monkey run. The only problem i see with this however is it would give mounts an unwanted advantage because players would be slower chacing them.
If they do not want to do that the only solution i could think of would be giving all the weapons outside of polearms equal range.
greatsword would be balanced speed and damage
Greatax be all about slow heavy all around damage.
Maces be about heavy damage toward armor
daggers you cannot really give much more distance so a bleed effect or bigger arc would likely be better.
Would be a shitty and boring system. But would be a shitty and boring that system that worked.
MMO and combat
MMOs for the most part seem to shy away from real time combat and rely instead on the auto target click and hotbar combat. There seems to be many reason why they do this including server loads, lag, data transfer and hackers. These are all valid reasons but one of my major complaints is why so many MMOs make such boring click and wait hotbar combat.
Age of Conan did do a good job, despite its many failures, it made an interactive combat system.
Warhammer took the more traditional approach with a few added spices but to be honest i find its combat boring as hell.
Here are some things I have heard, and some I think can add spice to combat.
AoC type combos
Requiring players to be facing opponent and and no auto target (where the game will auto turn you towards your opponent when highlighted)
Adding dodge points for moving side to side
increasing parry when moving back
Mouse movements corresponding to directional swings in a rock papper scissors like manner (kind of like aoc blocking but better thought out and simpler)
Maybe also rip off some ideas from card games
Age of Conan did do a good job, despite its many failures, it made an interactive combat system.
Warhammer took the more traditional approach with a few added spices but to be honest i find its combat boring as hell.
Here are some things I have heard, and some I think can add spice to combat.
AoC type combos
Requiring players to be facing opponent and and no auto target (where the game will auto turn you towards your opponent when highlighted)
Adding dodge points for moving side to side
increasing parry when moving back
Mouse movements corresponding to directional swings in a rock papper scissors like manner (kind of like aoc blocking but better thought out and simpler)
Maybe also rip off some ideas from card games
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