Dagger fall - hitting things with a sword

[Diego]

The "problem" with the training mission is that requires a looot of reading. The map itself is just gorgeous, but not many people will have the patience to read through those books. I just flipped the pages quickly

 

This comment might be more appropriate in 'suggestions something' thread.

[LEGION]

I read it all the first time. But if someone would make changes on books now without saying it, I would be never aware of it.

 

I like the idea to change the blocking side while already blocking with the sword. I often do this for just watching my beautiful sword. Yeah, I´m some kind of sword-fetishist.

 

The hitting-system is, as far as I know (AFAIK, right?), as 'realistic' as it can be. Collisions are in real time, depending on where the sword really is, so if there is armor in the way you hit the armor. I think it´s helpful to aim over. You surely don´t know what I mean, right? How can I tell this, wait, it´s like blackjacking. Aim more to the top and for left slashes more left. I think that will help to increase accuracy.

 

Much like it would be in real life, I like that. If you lower the Combat-difficulty you´ll have more time to 'plan' your hits. But I´m not a very experienced fighter. To be honest, until now I only fought in the arena of the Training Mission. Would be cool if the team would enhance this to a sort of 'event' where you can earn something.

 

btw: As we speak of it: Yesterday I managed the first time to light the candle on top in the, äh, candle-room. The one where you have to build a wall of crates to get up. But there was no reward!

[Mortem Desino]

Of course. In Daggerfall, you depended on an invisible dice roll to hit. If your dice roll succeeded, you hit that nasty goblin pixel garglemesh, and got a bloody pixel splat on your screen.

 

If you wildly wave your sword in TDM, you'll inevitably hit something: whether that's the wall next to you or the guard's shin is up to you.

[Mr Lemony Fresh]

Yep i can pick up bodies lol it's one of those things you don't have to think to do under pressure. (most of the time)

 

I just played the training mission again with auto parry, i ran at the first guy with my stab thrust at the ready and skewered him in the head with ease I also fought a very fast battle with the hammer guy and guard which ended up the same way And i beat all three of them a couple of times too on expert.

 

So basically while auto parry may have made it less or a chore, it does water down the combat a little. The idea I suggested would have spared the realism and fun that goes into blocking and there is less chance of fumbling it if you're fast.

 

Think about it, lemme' draw you a diagram

(see attached)

 

As you can see, when you you turn right to block right, you are effectively avoid the enemy blow while you block it, all while keeping your eye direction on the enemy. This also encourages the pllayer to move around the guard which creates a more involved gameplay. When looking up or down it's just a matter of looking up to stab and down to thrust while holding parry. The only flaw in this design is that you couldn't overhead or stab while you move around the target, but if you think about this, it's not exactly vital, and stabbing or overhead attacking someone isn't the best way to hit someone while you are circling them anyway i reckon.

Edited July 13, 2010 by Mr Lemony Fresh

[Midnight]

Cool picture. :-)

 

Ok, I think I see what you're getting at. The issue is that having to choose a direction for blocking means that you lose focus on the guard, which affects how you're able to prepare for you next strike, correct?

 

The thing is, in real life it takes a lot more effort than you might think to block an attack from a sword strike, so this seems quite realistic to me rather than just being able to block without it affecting your stance. I guess that in real life you could still be looking directly at the enemy the whole time, but unless TDM were able to implement something like head tracking / TrackIR (which would be awesome btw) then you're always going to have to compromise on the controls with something like this.

 

On that note, does anyone know if TrackIR could be supported in TDM?

[SneaksieDave]

@ pic

[Mortem Desino]

On that note, does anyone know if TrackIR could be supported in TDM?

You've got access to all the ingredients: the doom 3 sdk, the TDM code, and the TrackIR sdk. Baby, you got a witch's brew goin'!

 

And Mr Lemony Fresh, that is quite possibly the funniest concept art ever. Where were you when the melee system was still being built?

[Midnight]

Where were you when the melee system was still being built?

Lol. I vote that all guards are re-skinned to have 'Bad Man' emblazoned across their chests.

 

I wasn't so sure about TrackIR because Doom3 isn't in the 'enhanced' games list, which means that currently you can get it to work but it effectively acts the same as the mouse, which wouldn't allow you to move your head in one direction but move the mouse in another. I assumed the D3 source would be required but either way, it would be a great fit for TDM. I like how leaning could be directed through leaning with the headset (see

at 3:25).

 

A friend of mine has a TrackIR headset so I'll try borrow it and see if/how this works with the standard mouse emulation mode.

Edited July 13, 2010 by Midnight

[Diego]

Sorry, I'm parachuting in the middle of the discussion

 

But isn't the strike direction controlled by the mouse? like "click + drag left = strike left(or right)" I can do all that while pressing "d" or "a" to move right or left.

 

Or am I confusing with Mount&Blade? Or this is not what this discussion is all about? Again, sorry

[Mortem Desino]

I'll bet anything that this is what screws up those "MELEE IS TOO HARD" nay-sayers: The order is the other way around. Drag left +click = leftward slash. Do not click first.

 

 

Pagh.

[Mr Lemony Fresh]

Ok, I think I see what you're getting at. The issue is that having to choose a direction for blocking means that you lose focus on the guard, which affects how you're able to prepare for you next strike, correct?

 

 

Well not exactly, I suggested that while the parry button is clicked, if for instance you decided to move the mouse the the left to block left, if you decided to instead block from the top, you could then while still holding parry, change the direction. This would be most handy if you had to prepare yourself to block fast, because you could ready your parry (or if you like take defensive position) and then be ready to block in any direction.

After this is set in place, you could make the guards attack and block faster a little which would on whole keep the difficulty but make the combat more fast passed and exciting.

 

My concept art was meant to show you how this could be implemented without having to worry about not being able to keep an eye on your target and be able to move around him.

 

EDIT: btw, I'm glad to see that people enjoyed my illustration

Edited July 14, 2010 by Mr Lemony Fresh

[LEGION]

Yes, leaning with TrackIR would be damn cool! Also looking around while reading books and, what else could be cool?

I have it too for my racing game (GTR2) and it works damn good!

 

I didn´t bought the official one, though, too much to pay(100€). I instead tweaked my PS3-EYE-cam (30 € by now) (taken the Block-IR-filter out and added two IR-filter from a floppy-disk, was really hard to get inside the damn thing and even harder to get the filter out, but finally...) and I use it with the free software Freetrack. One can build himself the LED-diodes, but that was too much for me so I payed 40 bucks for TrackClipPro that provides three LED´s.

It was definitely worth it.

[LEGION]

So you want and auto-cycling-around-enemy-mode to have that, right? Because changing the parry-direction with moving the mouse would make it impossible to react with the parry, because it would change with every movement. For not having this side-effect it would require an additional key for 'Realtime'-changing/adjusting parry.

[Mr Lemony Fresh]

So you want and auto-cycling-around-enemy-mode to have that, right? Because changing the parry-direction with moving the mouse would make it impossible to react with the parry, because it would change with every movement. For not having this side-effect it would require an additional key for 'Realtime'-changing/adjusting parry.

 

No auto cycling, I'm saying that you CAN move around the enemy, and it work works well because while your mouse is moving the view right (so that you can stay centred on the enemy) you are blocking and moving on the right side at the same time, so that not only are you moving away from a blow, you are also block it, which is something that happens in real life.

 

OR you can hold still while holding the parry button then drag in the direction you want to block AS YOU NORMALLY WOULD except you aren't just restricted to moving it in one direction then letting go, you can move it in a direction, then while still holding parry, move it into another direction, for instance moving it left while pressing parry to block a blow, then being able to move it right without letting go of the parry button.

[LEGION]

Oh, I got it all wrong. So you weren´t suggesting an improvement for the system with your painting, you just found out yourself how it works? Can one say it like this?

[Mr Lemony Fresh]

[LEGION]

You really have an attitude confusing me, you know! Never mind, this is not my native language and some times I confuse myself than I read older posts I wrote times ago...

[Mr Lemony Fresh]

Sorry man, I doubt I could explain it any better without speaking in your native tongue

 

To be fair though, it is a slightly difficult thing to explain.

[Midnight]

OR you can hold still while holding the parry button then drag in the direction you want to block AS YOU NORMALLY WOULD except you aren't just restricted to moving it in one direction then letting go, you can move it in a direction, then while still holding parry, move it into another direction, for instance moving it left while pressing parry to block a blow, then being able to move it right without letting go of the parry button.

Since English is my native language I'll give this a go. :-)

 

If it's a case of just being able to change the parry direction while holding the parry button, I don't see why this can't work with the existing system. Thinking about it, it does seem like this would be animprovement, though I'd have to try it out during combat to make sure it didn't cause problems when also using the mouse to keep the guard centred on the screen (I.e you wouldn't want the blocking to change to the wrong direction unintentionally).

[aidakeeley]

English is my foist tung two...

 

But this is confusing:

 

Drag Left + Click vs Click+Drag Left

 

4 4 1 2 "drag" 1 must be clicked.

 

...

 

So tell me: if I want to stab at "Bad Guy"*... do I move the mouse forward and then click? click and hold and then move the mouse forward? click and hold and then move the mouse forward and then de-click and click again?

 

Somehow I am okay at fighting - as in, good enough that I can ~survive~ a one on one, but with the kind of damage I feel I deserve for getting caught out -- as far as offense goes; defense (parrying) is way beyond me and I've always been of the mind, anyway, that if I got time to parry, I got time to, instead, make/take another "stab" at "Bad Guy".

 

*That is a great sketch-up, you have talent there.

[Diego]

This is confusing.. If I drag up and THEN click, it's the same as looking up and clicking.

 

I'm playing too much Mount&Blade lately, but it has a great meele combat system: Click and drag left, for example, feels like pulling your arm to the left, (the camera doesn't move left, just the arm) and releasing the mouse button for the strike from left to right.

[LEGION]

Maybe it could be possible to change the parry direction, while parring, with the left mouse button?

[Mr Lemony Fresh]

Lol congrats midnight you got it

 

As for whether you'd be moving in the right direction if you were to circle the enemy, yes, because you would be moving away from the direction of his thrust, and therefore avoiding an attack, so you could still move around.

 

English is my foist tung two...

 

But this is confusing:

 

Drag Left + Click vs Click+Drag Left

Nope no change here

 

4 4 1 2 "drag" 1 must be clicked.

Now your confusing me lol.

 

Try not to think of it technically, just imagine it's exactly the same as the current system, but when you have parry ready, or you've moved the mouse in order to click parry in a certain direction, as long as you are still holding parry, you can move your mouse in an other direction which changes the direction you block.

 

Essentially without me trying to explain how that could fit neatly into the current system, that's the entirety of the change.

 

[stumpy]

is there any point to this as this is a stealth mod and fighting is frowned upon, and your trying to argue into making it a fighting mod.

[nbohr1more]

I do agree that fighting in general is counter to the game-play style of the mod but OTOH part of the appeal to these changes is to give players more freedom to act-out in ways that they would imagine they would (so more immersion for people who resort to fisticuffs when in a tight spot).

 

I would think of any further investigation into the melee system as the same category as adding more "junk items" (like edible apples, etc), you are leaving the player free to do "non-game stuff" for the sake of immersion.

 

I find the default melee system compelling when I play with it on the training map but when I am confronted in-game I usually fail to do as well.

 

Here is my pitiful sequence:

 

1) Screw-up and alert Bad Man somehow

2) Have a Water-Arrow selected and try to toggle to Sword

3) Get hit before the Sword selection arrives

4) Begin melee

5) Bad Man deflects Sword

6) Fail to parry (too flustered or clumsy)

7) Slashed to death

 

What might be fun:

 

1) Screw-up and alert Bad Man

2) Have a Water-Arrow selected

3a) Kick Bad Man in the shin

or

3b) Jab Bad Man with Bow

4) Sword Arrives

5) Maybe "Easier\Improved Melee"

6) Escape Bad Man

7) Chased and then killed by many Bad Men (hey I'm realistic )