TDM Combat

[SirGen]

Your question got me thinking. The enemy that I fight on Awaiting the Storm is carrying a torch. I killed him and looked for a new opponent to study. I found one; this city watchmen in a blue tunic wasn't carrying a torch. His downward attack animations weren't as vertical as the city watchmen carrying the torch! I remembered that there is a city watchmen carrying a torch in The Beleaguered Fence. I studied him. His downward attack animations were also quite vertical. I think it's safe to say that enemies carrying torches have a very vertical upwards-chambering/downwards-attack, while the rest do not. Is there any way that you guys could transfer this vertical animation to non-torch-carrying enemies?

[Springheel]

Yes, probably the torch-carriers are using the old animations. I'm not sure if have the original Maya files for those or not. I'll make a tracker entry so it isn't forgotten.

[SirGen]

Sounds good.

[RPGista]

It does a lot of things (Combat Difficulty) although those are the skill sets for different AI (e.g., an unskilled brawler vs a professional guard). The player difficulty setting modifies these values as well. It increases hitpoints and damage, attack time, reaction time, predictive ability (you have to attack them from different directions or they get used to the same attack and react faster to it). It also makes them more likely to counter attack and remise, rather than parry your attack, which can throw a wrench in the strategy you posted above by causing a simultaneous hit after you parry and try to riposte, instead of you parry, they parry, you parry, etc.

 

Sorry mates, been away for a while, I was wondering how this issue was being handled, if at all (the discussion about making Combat Difficulty separate from AI's health values, so you could potentialy have very skilled AI but keeping low health values (= both you and them get killed pretty fast), or the opposite (=it takes a LOT of hits to down anyone)). A possible alternative that just came to mind would be setting up preset settings that were descriptive and included the basic situations wanted (instead of Easy, Medium, Hard, things like Combat Difficulty: "Difficult and Fast", or "Easy and Low Damage", etc.

 

PS: For those that were there at the time, I wouldnt like to make arrows the issue here. Its exactly to balance combat (make it less easy) that I wanted to set combat difficulty to the maximun, but without having to deal with the doubled health values, which kill immersion. The way I would like to have it, a single blow to the head should kill anyone (the player included), the question being how easy you get that hit (AI's defense levels and reaction time).

Edited August 15, 2013 by RPGista

[Springheel]

Nothing has changed in combat options for 2.0, other than fixing the bug where the default setting cut AI's HP in half.

[RPGista]

Yeah, but thats the thing, if I want to keep hitpoint levels like they are now, Im going to have to put it on easy and then AI will become less challenging. A pity. Guess I better start learning how to mess with the config files then.

Edited August 15, 2013 by RPGista

[Ishtvan]

Your question got me thinking. The enemy that I fight on Awaiting the Storm is carrying a torch. I killed him and looked for a new opponent to study. I found one; this city watchmen in a blue tunic wasn't carrying a torch. His downward attack animations weren't as vertical as the city watchmen carrying the torch! I remembered that there is a city watchmen carrying a torch in The Beleaguered Fence. I studied him. His downward attack animations were also quite vertical. I think it's safe to say that enemies carrying torches have a very vertical upwards-chambering/downwards-attack, while the rest do not. Is there any way that you guys could transfer this vertical animation to non-torch-carrying enemies?

 

Yeah, not to foster discontent, but I think losing the old clear vertical telegraphing attack animation really broke the combat for anyone using the manual parry method. The newer animations are too hard to distinguish from a (your) left to (your) right slash.

 

On an unrelated topic, do any FM authors want to help put some AI melee trainers ingame? I scripted a bunch of them 2 years ago or so, but need a map to put them in (either put them all in different rooms or have scripts to spawn them and a way for the player to choose which ones they want to spawn).

[Obsttorte]

Wouldn't that be something fitting for the Training Mission? Never checked it but maybe there is enough space in the melee fight training section to put this in.

 

I think Biker did the main work on this mission in the last time, so you should ask him.

[i30817]

There is a melee fighting session on the training mission.

[Ishtvan]

I looked into adding it to the training mission before but it would require a lot of re-scripting, then we'd have to push out an official update of that map, etc. It's easier for now to do it as a separate map. It's not the same as the training that's currently there, there's a lot more to it.

[demagogue]

You could take the architecture from the Training Mission at least to get a head start.

[SirGen]

Combat seems better in 2.0. I used to block then immediately attack; this would hit the enemy 70% of the time in 1.8. The enemies seem to block attacks much more often now. I'm really liking this! Combat is more fun and intense. It's also more risky, so I need to be even stealthier. Great job team!

Edited October 13, 2013 by SirGen

[SirGen]

I have mixed feelings about the players' reduced health or the enemies' increased attack power, which ever it happens to be. The Dark Mod is a game about sneaking that discourages open combat yet it has a pretty solid combat system should one need it. The reduced health encourages sneaking even more now, but on occasion I like to get into fights with 1 or more guards. In 1.8 on the normal combat difficulty setting the player would be killed with 4 hits from the longsword; in 2.0 it only takes 2 hits to kill the player. Could an easy setting be added to the combat difficulty, that allows the player to have 4 hits once again?

Edited October 20, 2013 by SirGen

[Springheel]

I don't think the player's HP was changed. There was a bug where the Normal was cutting AI HP in half, but I think that was the only change.

[SirGen]

I still have 1.8. I tested it again to be certain. I loaded up The Alchemist in 1.8 and let the guard kill me. It took 4 hits. I then loaded up 2.0, and it took 2 hits. I don't know what the cause is, but it would be nice if an easy option could be added to the combat difficulty so that the player could once again have 4 hits. Or better yet, health adjustment for the player and AI separately.

[Springheel]

The same type of guard? Different weapons do different damage, and different guards have different skill levels (which also affects damage).

 

If there has been a change we'll need to look at it.

[SirGen]

I gave it another go. I let 4 different guards kill me in both versions. All the guards wore blue tunics, (some had green sleeves.) had open faced, brimmed helmets, plate mail pauldrons and wielded longswords. Each guard in 1.8 killed me in 4 hits and each guard in 2.0 killed me in 2.

[Springheel]

I'll look into it.

[SirGen]

Thanks

[Vesegrad]

Hi everybody! Big Thanks for everything you've done so far, guys, really like Dark Mod. I Have some request, though: maybe you should change a little the AI's overhead attack animation. You see, right now (in 2.0 v) beginnig of that move looks way too similar to the right-to-left slash. Because of that it's extremely hard to realize what kind of attack enemy trying to use and successfully block it. I mean, before it's too late lol. So what do you say?

[Sotha]

Hi everybody! Big Thanks for everything you've done so far, guys, really like Dark Mod. I Have some request, though: maybe you should change a little the AI's overhead attack animation. You see, right now (in 2.0 v) beginnig of that move looks way too similar to the right-to-left slash. Because of that it's extremely hard to realize what kind of attack enemy trying to use and successfully block it. I mean, before it's too late lol. So what do you say?

 

Has been proposed already. We need the original animator to do the change, because he has the animation file, and the change would be simple re-adjustment of the original anim. If he cannot do it, we would have to recreate a new anim from scratch, which is not feasible with current manpower.

[Vesegrad]

I see, thanks for quick answer, Sotha.

[SirGen]

Has been proposed already. We need the original animator to do the change, because he has the animation file, and the change would be simple re-adjustment of the original anim. If he cannot do it, we would have to recreate a new anim from scratch, which is not feasible with current manpower.

The torch carriers still have the old vertical windup for the downward attack. Springheel said something about this possibly being of use.

[Springheel]

I could use the old attack as a base and try to make it look half-decent, while still keeping the old telegraph motion. Unfortunately my old copy of Maya doesn't work since I updated to Win7, so I haven't been able to do any more animating.

[vvGarrettvv]

Thoughts about swords in DM in general:

For my opinion a Thief is not wearing a sword.

A dagger would suffice. A thief has to be agile and fast.

He has to climb and crouch. !Jumping & SNEAKING!

Is there anyone out there who has tried wearing a sword with up to 80 cm in length (approx. weight up to 3 pound)

and crouch,sneak and climb through rooms which are stuffed to the death with furnitures, vases, candelabra?

You don`t need that much fantasy to imagine how complicate the (silent) movement will get.

Dont forget the bow on the back and the arrows. And the potions at the belt.

Its not only uncomfortable. It`s too loud and exhausting to carry

And by the way, our thief is not a fighter. Avoiding fights is one of the vital "USP`s" of the real sneaking games like DM.

For spiders and other little fellas a dagger is way enough.

So the last thing i would worry about are any fighting animations .

If a guard see the thief, he`s screwed. Thats the way the cookie crumbles (at least for thiefs)

 

P.S.: The thiefs weapons are the abilty to pick every lock, padlock and using tricky arrows. Évtl. looking through keyholes.

Sneaking, hiding in the dark. Using his smartness and his ability to think outside the box.

And last but not least the completely undependence of any religion or politics :-))

Thats what makes him the ultimate rogue.

 

If I´m spotted by any guard I do not attack him I load the last save, because i failed

Edited November 11, 2013 by vvGarrettvv