[MUD-Dev] Better Combat

[Brendan O'Brien]

Corey Cauble wrote:

> In defense of Brendan's suggestion I am not sure he is looking for
> higher payoffs in the end result, i.e. item gains. If I understand
> it correctly, he is looking just for a more tactical
> representation of the combat features.

Yep.

>> And if this has graphics: animation.  It's already hard enough to
>> animate a lag-free fighting game.  And that's assuming the game
>> designer got the move/countermove timing-equations right.
>> Animating variable latency is nontrivial.  Combat systems that
>> don't have these interactions don't have to worry about this,
>> exactly because they are noninteractive.

> This seems to be the hardest aspect to date to improve in the MMO
> arena.  It is kind of funny to watch two people fighting with
> sword strikes contacting only air and the players 20ft apart. I
> have been working on some improvements in this area. Once I have a
> working model I will supply a link to an example.

To tie in with the animation aspect, I realized I left out a factor
in the design which would certainly have an impact.  In some ways
similar to what John Buehler has been proposing, I also had the
intent of taking basic character control out of the player's hands
during combat.  What I mean by this is that once engaged, the player
will no longer use the basic movements to get his character into a
certain position (i.e. moving forward, turning, or strafing).
Instead, he gives the charcter commands as to how he wants to
execute the fight, and the character does his best to carry them
out.

So, for a move such as the sidestep slash I mentioned earlier, the
player would not be required to manualy move his character at the
proper time in order to execute the manuever.  Instead, he issues
the command to try to pull off the move, and if the combat variables
work out in his favor, the character will execute it on his own.  By
taking the minor controls away from the player, I would have to
think it would be much easier to code a realistic looking battle
(have swings do more than hit air).  However, in the case of larger
fights with multiple opponents, I still think good animations would
be somewhat difficult to pull off.

-  Brendan
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